The city of Poynor, Texas just became the 28th in the nation to protect unborn babies by passing a Sanctuary for the Unborn ordinance.
On Tuesday, the city council voted unanimously in favor of the pro-life measure, joining 25 other Texas cities and two in Nebraska, The Texan reports. Poynor (population 314) is located in eastern Texas.
The Sanctuary for the Unborn ordinance recognizes that unborn babies are valuable human beings who deserve to be protected under the law. It prohibits abortions within city limits and outlines legal consequences for abortionists who abort unborn babies. It does not penalize women who seek or have abortions, and it does not prohibit abortions when the mother’s life is at risk.
Mark Lee Dickson, director with Right To Life of East Texas and founder of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn initiative, celebrated the vote on Facebook. He said Poynor is the second city in just two days to pass an enforceable ordinance outlawing abortion within city limits
He shared the thoughts of Poynor resident Cassie Marsh, one of the people who urged the council to pass the ordinance.
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“I am so excited Poynor is now a Sanctuary City for the Unborn!” Marsh said. “God is faithful! Being involved in this movement for my hometown has been such an honor. There’s no place I’d rather be than standing up for unborn lives and standing alongside mothers to help them choose life.”
The city of Abernathy (population 3,005) also passed a Sanctuary for the Unborn ordinance on Monday, and, a week earlier, the city of Lubbock did the same through a city-wide ballot measure.
Lubbock is the largest city to pass the pro-life ordinance and the first with an abortion facility. The American Civil Liberties Union predicted the ordinance will have a “chilling effect on abortion access” in the city – meaning it will save unborn babies’ lives.
Dickson told LifeNews that many people are urging their cities to pass Sanctuary for the Unborn ordinances because President Joe Biden’s administration is aggressively pushing to expand abortions.
“The Biden Administration has said that they want to see abortion access in every zip code,” he said. “Cities must be prepared. Biden is seeking to fulfill that through the abortion pill, which he is working hard to deregulate. The future of the abortion industry is not brick and mortar but abortion by mail or abortion by vending machine at a school or outside of a grocery store.”
The Sanctuary for the Unborn ordinance defines an abortion as “the act of using or prescribing an instrument, a drug, a medicine, or any other substance, device, or means with the intent to cause the death of an unborn child of a woman known to be pregnant.”
The ordinance has both public and private enforcement mechanisms. The public enforcement mechanism establishes fines against the abortionist and anyone who helps with an abortion within city limits. However, it cannot be enforced until Roe v. Wade is overturned.
However, the private enforcement mechanism is immediate. It makes abortionists and those who help them “liable in tort to a surviving relative of the aborted unborn child, including the unborn child’s mother, father, grandparents, siblings or half-siblings,” meaning the abortionist can be sued for aborting the unborn child.
Dickson said other cities in Nebraska, Florida, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas also have expressed interest in passing pro-life ordinances.
