Immediately, I as soon as once more focus my consideration on the Lone Star State, house of the tireless crusader Mark Lee Dickson—director of East Texas Proper to Life and the founding father of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative—who’s pushing to carry concerning the day when “abortion is taken into account an awesome ethical, social and political mistaken and is outlawed in each single state.” To this finish, along with his inaugural marketing campaign to rework the nation into an end-to-end “sanctuary for the unborn,” Dickson is now urgent locales all through Texas to enact abortion trafficking bans, which he’s actively selling because the “subsequent stage in an abortion-free America,”
Heeding the decision, on Oct. 23, three of the 5 male Lubbock County commissioners (with two abstaining) permitted an abortion trafficking ordinance making it illegal to move anybody searching for an abortion by the unincorporated space of Lubbock County. The identical three commissioners additionally voted to declare the unincorporated components of the county a sanctuary for the unborn, although its near-total abortion ban locations it, in response to the Guttmacher Institute, within the “most restrictive” class.
Do I’ve the suitable, do I’ve the ability, do I would like the authority to inform these ladies what to do, violate their rights? I’ve a tough time with that.
Gilbert Flores, Lubbock County commissioner
In rolling out this marketing campaign, Dickson blamed the issue of abortion trafficking on a baby-murdering abortion cartel. He’s not alone on this perception. On Aug. 21, 2023, a gaggle of Texas lawmakers despatched a letter addressed to native officers declaring that though “abortion is outlawed in all the State of Texas from the purpose of conception, our work is way from over,” because of the truth that:
“[r]ight now, all through the State of Texas, ladies are being trafficked throughout our borders by abortion traffickers funded by abortion trafficking organizations nonetheless working in our state. Because of this, these ladies are being abused and traumatized by abortion throughout our Texas-New Mexico border and despatched again to Texas for our cities· and counties to cope with the aftermath happening in our houses, our faculties, our church buildings and our hospitals.”
Though the pregnant girl is introduced as a sufferer of those nefarious forces who’re forcing her throughout state traces in opposition to her will, the truth is that she is way extra more likely to be transported by a companion, good friend or member of the family than by a member of a “child murdering cartel” or an ”abortion trafficking group.” Nonetheless, as I wrote beforehand, recognition of this actuality would pose a little bit of a quandary for proponents of those measures since “the authorized understanding of trafficking usually contains a point of coercion or pressure.”
Dickson, nevertheless, has a workaround. Rooted in his foundational perception that “unborn youngsters are human beings,” they’re additionally solid as a trafficked get together based mostly on the view that “’the unborn baby is all the time taken in opposition to their will.’” This suggestion that unborn youngsters have enforceable consent rights opens up the proverbial can of worms. Does this imply {that a} pregnant individual should in some way seek the advice of with the fetus and safe its permission earlier than participating in conduct which may doubtlessly current a threat, resembling going snowboarding? Or indulging in that additional cup of espresso on the weekends?
Like the opposite trafficking (and sanctuary metropolis) measures, Lubbock permits non-public events to carry civil fits in opposition to those that are helping the “mom of the unborn baby … within the killing of her unborn baby” by transporting her for abortion care on roads operating by the unincorporated areas of the county. Notably, the “mom of the unborn baby” is herself exempt from go well with—presumably as a result of, just like the fetus, she too is solid on this street journey saga as an unwilling traveler.
Targeted primarily on the protected constitutional proper to journey, authorized students have raised critical questions concerning the validity of those ordinances. In spite of everything, even Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who’s definitely no fan of Roe, expressed the view in his concurring opinion in Dobbs {that a} state can’t bar its residents from cross-border abortion journey.
Slicing to the chase, former state Sen. Wendy Davis, now a senior advisor at Deliberate Parenthood Texas Votes, declared that this can be a plan “one after the other, to create a statewide ban in opposition to journey to different states, actually making a reproductive jail within the state of Texas.”
Might a State bar a resident of that State from touring to a different State to acquire an abortion? For my part, the reply isn’t any based mostly on the constitutional proper to interstate journey.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group
Whereas additionally not an abortion rights supporter, Gilbert Flores, a 77-year-old Lubbock county commissioner, one of many abstaining votes, drew on his private historical past to clarify his opposition to the ordinance. Explaining that his rights had been violated when he was rising up “in school, at eating places, anyplace I went,” he ventured that, “Now, what’s in entrance of me proper now could be, do I’ve the suitable, do I’ve the ability, do I would like the authority to inform these ladies what to do, violate their rights? I’ve a tough time with that.’”
In the meantime, in close by Amarillo, town council tabled its vote on the proposed ordinance so as to assessment it extra fastidiously. Along with considerations about its authority to limit journey, council member Tom Scherlen expressed his reservations concerning the non-public enforcement mechanism, explaining that the thought of “turning neighbor in opposition to neighbor” took him “again to World Warfare II and what the Nazis did,” by encouraging neighbors to show one another in for harboring Jews.
These ordinances additionally increase one other degree of concern concerning the surveillance of these touring out of state for abortion care: the usage of geolocation knowledge to trace the journey route and supreme vacation spot of “violators” for the aim of bringing go well with in opposition to them.
Whereas this will sound slightly far-fetched, “the usage of expertise has made it virtually not possible for Individuals to evade ubiquitous monitoring,” wrote Natasha Singer and Brian X. Chen within the New York Occasions—a actuality pushed house by the truth that geolocation knowledge was apparently used to find out that an Idaho teen was not too long ago taken by her boyfriend and his mom throughout state traces for an abortion, in contravention of the state’s trafficking legislation.
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