In Rare Win for Deep-Red State, Texas City Rejects Abortion Travel Ban

Amarillo rejected a proposal to outlaw anyone from using roads that pass through the city’s jurisdiction if they’re using them to get an abortion. 

By Kylie Cheung  |  November 6, 2024 | 3:15pm
Photo: Getty Images AbortionPolitics 2024 Election
In Rare Win for Deep-Red State, Texas City Rejects Abortion Travel Ban

In a rare but important win, particularly in a deep-red state, voters in Amarillo, Texas, rejected a proposed abortion travel ban, which would have banned anyone from using roads within the city if they were traveling for abortion care. The measure, called Proposition A, lost by a resounding 20 points. The crucial vote comes after a wave of Texas counties, including Cochran, Mitchell, Goliad, and Lubbock, enacted similar ordinances in 2023—but these measures were notably adopted by county commissioners, not implemented by a direct vote. 

Proposition A would have been enforced by allowing Amarillo residents to sue anyone for violating the ordinance for at least $10,000. People could violate the ordinance in a range of terrifying ways—for example, by providing transportation, donating to abortion funds, sharing abortion-related information, or even for donating to anyone that’s already been sued under the ordinance. Anyone who “intends” to violate the ordinance could be sued, too. In 2023, GOP council member Tom Scherlen said Proposition A “takes me back to World War II and what the Nazis did” to enforce laws during WWII.

Amarillo’s city council rejected the travel ban measure last year, but anti-abortion activists successfully collected enough signatures to put the measure on the 2024 ballot.

The Nation’s Amy Littlefield notes that given Amarillo’s location in Texas—between Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Albuquerque, New Mexico—“pretty much the only people traveling through Armarillo to get an abortion live in Amarillo, and there’s very little anybody can do to help them with that.” If Proposition A faced any legal challenge, it would land in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas with the Donald Trump-appointed anti-abortion extremist Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. 

Proposition A notably cited the Comstock Act, a dormant law from 1873 that outlaws the mailing of “obscene” materials, which could ban abortion pills or medical supplies used in abortion clinics. The ordinance’s insane, anti-abortion authors argue that if it’s illegal to transport materials that help people have an abortion, it should also be illegal to transport people for this purpose. We can expect anti-abortion activists to continue to try to wield Comstock to make these and other terrifying arguments, ultimately pushing toward a national abortion ban and restrictions on travel. And while Texas’ SB 8 abortion ban, which similarly empowers Texans to sue each other for at least $10,000 for helping someone get an abortion, is still law, Amarillo’s vote makes clear that people don’t want to spy on or tell on the people in their community. 

Anti-abortion activists have also been attacking abortion-related travel by baselessly framing it as “abortion trafficking,” which is the same approach that proponents for Proposition A in Amarillo took. Anti-abortion leader Mark Lee Dickson, who led the effort for Proposition A, chillingly told the Tribune the ordinance is “in line with the Republican Party of Texas 2024 Party Platform,” and vowed that the fight in Amarillo is “far from over.”

Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel at the reproductive justice legal group If/When/How, told Jezebel in 2023 that possible enforcement of abortion travel bans is just one piece of what makes them dangerous. Their purpose is “chaos and confusion.” She explained, “If not even trained lawyers can parse this, how are people who are just trying to figure out what their options are, how they can support their loved ones, supposed to get any of this?”

The state of Texas doesn’t allow voters to directly place propositions on the ballot, so Amarillo’s vote on Proposition A marks a rare occasion in which Texas voters have a direct say on abortion. “It’s something that touches all our lives, and we reject extremist government overreach,” Lindsay London, co-founder of the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance, told the Texas Tribune. “Particularly when it comes to penalizing support for travel, it violates our constitutional rights.” 

The vote is certainly reassuring—but the escalating war on abortion-related travel, and Dickson’s pledge to continue trying to enact bans like this is terrifying, especially under a second Trump presidency.

 
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