Forced-Birth Crowd Targets Right to Travel In Abortion Fight

[Webster]

Washington Post: Highways are the next antiabortion target. One Texas town is resisting.

LLANO, Tex. — No one could remember the last time so many people packed into City Hall.

As the meeting began on a late August evening, residents spilled out into the hallway, the brim of one cowboy hat kissing the next, each person jostling for a look at the five city council members who would decide whether to make Llano the third city in Texas to outlaw what some antiabortion activists call “abortion trafficking.” For well over an hour, the people of Llano — a town of about 3,400 deep in Texas Hill Country — approached the podium to speak out against abortion. While the procedure was now illegal across Texas, people were still driving women on Llano roads to reach abortion clinics in other states, the residents had been told. They said their city had a responsibility to “fight the murders.”

The cheers after each speech grew louder as the crowd readied for the vote. Then one woman on the council spoke up. “I feel like there’s a lot more to discuss about this,” said Laura Almond, a staunch conservative who owns a consignment shop in the middle of town. “I have a ton of questions.”

More than a year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, many conservatives have grown frustrated by the number of people able to circumvent antiabortion laws — with some advocates grasping for even stricter measures they hope will fully eradicate abortion nationwide.

That frustration is driving a new strategy in heavily conservative cities and counties across Texas. Designed by the architects of the state’s “heartbeat” ban that took effect months before Roe fell, ordinances like the one proposed in Llano — where some 80 percent of voters in the county backed President Donald Trump in 2020 — make it illegal to transport anyone to get an abortion on roads within the city or county limits. The laws allow any private citizen to sue a person or organization they suspect of violating the ordinance.

Antiabortion advocates behind the measure are targeting regions along interstates and in areas with airports, with the goal of blocking off the main arteries out of Texas and keeping pregnant women hemmed within the confines of their antiabortion state. These provisions have already passed in two counties and two cities, creating legal risk for those traveling on major highways including Interstate 20 and Route 84, which head toward New Mexico, where abortion remains legal and new clinics have opened to accommodate Texas women. Several more jurisdictions are expected to vote on the measure in the coming weeks.

“This really is building a wall to stop abortion trafficking,” said Mark Lee Dickson, the antiabortion activist behind the effort.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/01/texas-abortion-highways/

 

[KO896]

Forced birth? As opposed to force killing?

 

[Webster]

Forced birth? As opposed to force killing?

Yes, forced-birth because that is what they want. A decision regarding whether or not to carry a child to term should between a woman, her doctor, her family/friends if she so chooses and no one else.

 

[KO896]

Yes, forced-birth because that is what they want. A decision regarding whether or not to carry a child to term should between a woman, her doctor, her family/friends if she so chooses and no one else.

Like, I said, the decision is to let life live or to kill life because that's the alternative.

 

[Webster]

Like, I said, the decision is to let life live or to kill life because that's the alternative.

And as I've said, the only people who should make a decision on a woman's reproductive choices should be the woman and her doctor and no one else.