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By Shoshanna Ehrlich | On Nov. 5, 2024, voters in the Texas Panhandle city of Amarillo resoundingly defeated (59 to 41 percent) a proposition that would have declared their town a “sanctuary city for the unborn.” Amarillo now enjoys the distinction of being the first city in the U.S. where voters rejected a post-Roe abortion travel ban.
Given that antiabortion lawmakers control the state itself, the defeat of Proposition A may appear a Pyrrhic victory (one that is achieved at a great cost). However, it marks a powerful repudiation of Mark Lee Dickson, founder of the antiabortion group Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn, and his claims to Llano residents at a town hall that travel bans are desperately needed to stop “baby-murdering abortion cartels” from whisking women and their fetuses across state lines to legally “kill” them, according to The Washington Post.
The protracted battle over the ordinance dates back to July 2023, when Dickson held an “interest meeting” at a church in Amarillo. As Lindsay London, a cofounder of the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance (ARFA) told Ms., he expected a “slam dunk” victory following a string of successes across Texas, especially since Amarillo’s mayor and city council were fiercely antiabortion, and the Panhandle, deeply red.
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