Lubbock County, Texas, joins a group of other rural Texas counties that have voted to ban women from using their roads to seek abortions.

This comes after six cities and counties in Texas have passed abortion-related bans, out of nine that have considered them. However, this ordinance makes Lubbock the biggest jurisdiction yet to pass restrictions on abortion-related transportation.

During Monday’s meeting, the Lubbock County Commissioners Court passed an ordinance banning abortion, abortion-inducing drugs and travel for abortion in the unincorporated areas of Lubbock County, declaring Lubbock County a “Sanctuary County for the Unborn.”

The ordinance is part of a continued strategy by conservative activists to further restrict abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade as the ordinances are meant to bolster Texas’ existing abortion ban, which allows private citizens to sue anyone who provides or “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

The ordinance, which was introduced to the court last Wednesday, was passed by a vote of 3-0 with commissioners Terence Kovar, Jason Corley and Jordan Rackler, all Republicans, voting to pass the legislation while County Judge Curtis Parrish, Republican, and Commissioner Gilbert Flores, Democrat, abstained from the vote.

  • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Doesn’t this run afoul of the commerce clause?

    A random ass County can’t ban travel on any roads or highway for any reason, right? That’s strictly the job of congress.

    • reversebananimals@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My first thought as well. There is NO way this doesn’t get struck down in a court case. If you can’t even ban guns on streets near schools (US v. Lopez) then you definitely can’t ban a person from driving on a road to get to a medical procedure in a different state.

      • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Have you seen the other decisions made by SCOTUS?

        They don’t give a shit about consistency or law or precedent. They are politicians put there to deliver specific outcomes.

        • rchive@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          They do care about precedent, usually too much in my opinion. There have been many cases in the last few years brought to SCOTUS seeking the overturning of the doctrine of Qualified Immunity, but SCOTUS has in all cases either not taken them up or not ruled on that issue. They basically keep saying, “we’ve already ruled on this, we won’t touch it unless Congress changes the law in some way.” Dobbs was like the one issue SCOTUS has actually overturned a previous opinion on in recent years.

      • rchive@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        It’s not a ban, per se, it “just” opens people up to civil liability. The reason they do it that way is to skirt the Constitution.

    • ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      My guess is this is what will doom this law, specifically since they’re also looking at drugs which are certainly commodities from out of state.

      It might also be a prior restraint case depending on if traveling to a women’s healthcare provider is protected expression.

      Like, the problem for the county here is trying to stop people from doing something they can’t prove they’re actually going to do.

      They might be able to plus up other charges based on using county property in the commission of some other “crime” (gigantic air quotes). Sort of like getting extra charges due to using the USPS to commit a crime.

      • Zron@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Exactly. They’d have to prove you were specifically going there to get an abortion.

        Cops can’t stop you because you were on your way to a bank, just because they feel you might want to rob it. You have to have actually done something illegal in the first place.

        • somePotato@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Cops can’t stop you because you were on your way to a bank, just because they feel you might want to rob it.

          LOL Sure, in theory they can’t, but in reality cops do stop people for any made up reason and they can also shoot you for any made up reason without consequence.

          And “pro-life” people will support every cop that kills a pregnant woman on that highway.

      • tallwookie@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        it may be that they’re fully cognizant of this but this is a “pandering to the base” move they know will get shot down, then they just have to point at DC and say ‘hey, we tried, praise jaysus’

      • SheDiceToday@eslemmy.es
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        1 year ago

        The big stick that the federal government has in this case (regarding highway travel) is funding. Considering where funding bills typically start, I don’t think we can blame the president for this one.