Texas county becomes largest yet in state to enact abortion ‘travel ban’

CNA Staff, Oct 24, 2023 / 14:30 pm (CNA).

A Texas county this week became the largest yet in the state to enact a so-called “abortion travel ban” in its jurisdiction, passing broad restrictions on the act of assisting in or facilitating abortions there.

The Commissioners Court of Lubbock County voted on Monday to pass an ordinance “outlawing abortion within the unincorporated area of Lubbock County” and declaring the district “a sanctuary county for the unborn.”

Part of the measure includes a stipulation forbidding anyone from “knowingly transport[ing] any individual for the purpose of providing or obtaining an elective abortion, regardless of where the elective abortion will occur.”

The ban on transport applies “if the transportation of such individual begins, ends, or passes through the unincorporated area of Lubbock County,” the measure states.

Individuals are further forbidden to “knowingly aid or abet” anyone seeking transport to an abortion, including “offering, providing, or lending money, digital currency, or other resources” to that effect.

More broadly, the measure made it “unlawful for any person to procure or perform an elective abortion of any type and at any stage of pregnancy” in the county’s unincorporated area.

County Judge Curtis Parrish, who abstained from the vote, said the measure “as written has many legal problems.”

“The issue isn’t whether we should stand up for the rights of the unborn or the safety of the pregnant mother, but how do we make this ordinance stand up to the scrutiny of state and federal appellate courts?” Parrish said, according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

Texas had in 2021 already enacted a statewide “trigger law” that would ban abortion throughout the state in the event of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized abortion throughout the United States. The Texas law went into effect after Roe’s repeal last year by the Supreme Court in the case Dobbs v. Jackson.

Lubbock joins Goliad, Mitchell, and Cochran counties in passing an abortion travel ban.

In the wake of the Lubbock vote this week, Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas said to media that the measure represented one of several “unnecessary, confusing, and fear-inducing barriers” to what it called “essential health care” in Texas.

The abortion provider said its Lubbock facility remains a “trusted resource for reproductive and sexual health care” in the area.