UPDATE, 9/12/19: According to the Texas Tribune, the Austin City Council has approved using taxpayer funds to help women get abortions. The Tribune writes, “The Austin City Council on Tuesday amended next year’s budget and set aside $150,000 to supplement incidental expenses like travel, lodging and childcare for women seeking the procedure. The money will not go directly toward the expense of the procedure itself.”
8/21/19: The city of Austin, Texas, is considering spending $150,000 of taxpayer money to make it easier for local women to get abortions. At the behest of abortion businesses, Austin city council members are considering creating a fund of taxpayer money that would go toward transportation, child care, lodging, and “counseling” to women seeking abortions.
Mayor Pro Tem Delia Garza said the measure is in response to laws in the state of Texas that make it more difficult for babies to be aborted. “We have seen how this right has been chipped away at – from waiting periods to sonogram bills to all kinds of barriers being placed in front of women – who are simply seeking an option that is still a constitutional right in this country,” said Garza according to KUT.
At the state level, Texas pro-lifers have enacted policies in recent years designed to limit funding for abortion, partially in response to the city of Austin’s coziness with the abortion industry. In 2011, Texas removed funding from Planned Parenthood and other purveyors of abortion; however, the law overlooked other, more subtle methods of supporting abortion with taxpayer funds. As Live Action News previously reported, for many years the city of Austin charged a local Planned Parenthood a whopping total of $1 in rent per year for its 3,700 square foot location. In March of this year, the Texas legislature introduced a measure aimed at prohibiting Texas cities and counties from contracting with abortion providers. In June, that bill was signed into law.
READ: Pro-abortion clergy show up to ‘bless’ Texas abortion facility
The Austin city council’s new proposal is the latest by pro-abortion activists to provide a lifeline to the abortion industry. According to the Austin Chronicle, under the proposed rules, the Austin Public Health department would manage the funds, which would be subject to a competitive bidding process. While organizations that provide abortions would not be eligible to receive the funds, in accordance with state law, the money could be used to support organizations that provide “abortion support services” and help with logistics.
Mayor Pro Tem Garza blasted state pro-life initiatives, claiming they hurt vulnerable women. “The results of their efforts falls disproportionally on marginalized communities like the ones I represent,” said Garza, according to Fox 7 Austin. Yet it is unclear what harm Garza believes pro-life legislation is doing to marginalized communities. Abortion is never medically necessary and is not a form of healthcare. Abortion does not cure poverty — it simply kills the preborn children of those in poverty.
We believe the money should be spent differently. “There are some 23 wonderful agencies in the greater Austin area that help a woman who has a crisis pregnancy with alternatives to abortion, including adoption,” said Joe Pojman, ED for @TexasAlliance4Life.
— TexasAllianceforLife (@TXAlliance4Life) August 20, 2019
According to a press release from Texas Right to Life, “Members of the city council said they crafted the pro-abortion policy specifically to thumb their noses at the Pro-Life towns that have recently banned abortion by declaring themselves ‘Mother and Unborn Child Sanctuary Cities.’”
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