The city council for Waskom, Texas, which is made up entirely of middle-aged white men, just voted unanimously to ban abortions within its city limits, the first Texas city reportedly to do so.
The city, which boasts a population of about 2,000 and is considered a border town, has now dubbed itself a “sanctuary city for the unborn.”
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As of right now, Waskom offers no abortion services to its residents.
As such, council members are calling the ban a preventative measure.
“We decided to take things into our own hands, and we’ve got to do something to protect our cities and to protect the unborn children,” Right To Life with East Texas Director Mark Lee Dickson told KETK-TV .
On Tuesday night, community and church members flocked to the city council meeting.
Before the five male members of the council voted on the ban, Waskom Mayor Jesse Moore spoke to those in attendance and told them this ban will likely result in a lawsuit, one which the small city couldn’t afford to lose.
“Most likely we’ll end up getting sued if this passes,” he said. “It could go to the Supreme Court”
Despite the threat of a potential lawsuit, members of the community still supported the ordinance.
They assured KTAL-TV they had confidence in the ban because they knew “God will take care of them.”
After the measure was passed, the room reportedly erupted in cheers.
Unlike Alabama’s near-total abortion ban, Waskom’s has exceptions for rape, incest, and if the woman’s life is in danger.
These exceptions, members said, are necessary to include in order to make it to the Supreme Court so they can overturn Roe v. Wade.
The measure was modeled after the city of Roswell, New Mexico, passed a similar ban.
In a vote of seven to one in March, council passed the ban which declared the city’s jurisdiction to be in support of “fetal life.” The resolution also expressly “honors the rights of healthcare providers to object on moral grounds to performing abortions and opposes any regulation or law seeking to violate that right.”
Waskom’s goes one step further and bans abortions within city limits.
Dickson, leader of Right To Life, said an abortion clinic had been looking to move to Waskom.
This would have made it an abortion destination for a 200-mile radius.
“Due to recent pro-life legislation in Louisiana being so strong and due to the risk of an abortion clinic one day moving to Waskom, Texas, we decided to do something to protect the city, which was passing an ordinance outlawing abortion in Waskom, Texas,” he told Fox News .
He also said the city would focus on the Bible verse Amos 5:15: “Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate.”
This ban comes just two days after the Right to Life group held a rally with the First Baptist Church of Waskom, protesting abortion.
Rusty Thomas, national director for Operation Save America, spoke passionately at the rally.
“What city, what country, what state is saying to the federal government, ‘here, we will no longer murder our babies’?” Thomas implored during the rally . “Hey, Washington D.C., you can do whatever you want to do. For this town, we’re saying no babies will be aborted. Not under our watch.”
