Lubbock County, Texas Commissioners passed an ordinance on Monday banning transporting another person on their roads for the purpose of getting an abortion.
The decision passed 3-0 and makes Lubbock the largest of three other Texas counties where Republicans have led localized efforts to restrict abortion access and maintain their status as so-called “sanctuary cities for the unborn.”
Private citizens can file lawsuits against people assisting pregnant Texans along some Lubbock County highways under the new ordinance; however, the measure does not prohibit pregnant people from seeking an abortion.
Lubbock contains rural unincorporated communities whose highways connect Texas to New Mexico, where abortion is legal. Abortion seekers in Texas flocked to New Mexico after Texas issued a complete abortion ban with limited exceptions following the fall of Roe v. Wade.
Doctors at the University of New Mexico Center for Reproductive Health have said Texans make up more than 75 percent of their patients and New Mexico’s Planned Parenthoods saw the number of patients getting an abortion nearly quadruple.
In addition to Lubbock County, Republicans in Texas successfully pushed for “travel ban” measures in Mitchell, Goliad and Cochran Counties over the last five years — despite opposition from reproductive rights advocates who pointed out how these ordinances put pregnant people at risk.
Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas spokesperson Autumn Keiser described these pushes as “confusing” and “fear-inducing barriers to essential healthcare” in a statement released Monday. Keiser’s statement was issued the same day that a Trump-appointed federal judge advanced a case accusing three Texas Planned Parenthoods of Medicaid fraud. Planned Parenthoods in Texas are barred from performing abortions under the statewide ban.
Some county commissioners at Monday’s meeting questioned how exactly travel restrictions would be enforced. Councilmember Gilbert Florez, who abstained…
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