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The Conservative Strategy to Ban Abortion Nationwide
The New Yorker(Archived)
In mid-October, at a bank in downtown Amarillo, the local chapter of the League of Women Voters hosted an educational forum about proposed ordinances that would be on the ballot in November. Most were procedural—adding members to the city council, changing the process for a recall vote—but the real energy in the room circulated around Proposition A, also known as the “Sanctuary City for the Unborn Ordinance.”
In recent years, a so-called sanctuary movement, which seeks to outlaw abortion by passing local ordinances, has persuaded a number of Texas cities—Lubbock, Abilene, San Angelo—to sign on. A pro-life ordinance would seem to be a slam dunk in a place like Amarillo, a conservative city in the Texas Panhandle that’s been called the “shiny brass buckle” of the Bible Belt. The city spans two counties—Potter County, where nearly seventy per cent of the population voted for Trump in 2020, and Randall County, where almost eighty per cent did. “Voting Republican here, it’s just a given,” a woman standing by a snack table said.
But the campaign for Proposition A was turning out differently in Amarillo. The proposed ordinance goes a step further than banning abortion in the city. It attempts to prohibit people who live in Amarillo from obtaining abortions in other states (with an exception for the life of the mother) and others from even passing through Amarillo on their way to obtain abortions. A woman attending the event with her daughter told me that, although she was “absolutely” pro-life, something about Proposition A didn’t sit right with her. “Months ago, when they first started to push for it, I didn’t understand it,” she said. “And the more I understand it, the less I like it.”
Across town, at the Comanche Trail Church of Christ, a smaller but more fervent crowd had gathered in support of the ordinance. A panel of five women and two men sat on a stage, flanked by posters that read “Vote for Life.” “It is so important that we pass Proposition A—it protects our city,” the moderator, Bonnie Burnett, told the crowd.
In Texas, abortion is illegal in nearly all circumstances. But the downfall of Roe v. Wade has not led to the end of abortions; it has just put more burdens on women seeking them. Around thirty-five thousand Texans received out-of-state abortion care last year, according to the reproductive-rights organization the Guttmacher Institute. Many of them travelled through Amarillo, which sits at the crossroads of Interstates 40 and 27, en route to states such as New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas, where abortion is legal. Proposition A’s supporters say that it will stop “abortion trafficking.” Its opponents call it a travel ban. “This issue has split our community in half,” Tom Scherlen, an Amarillo city-council member, told me. “And it’s only going to get uglier.”
In recent years, a so-called sanctuary movement, which seeks to outlaw abortion by passing local ordinances, has persuaded a number of Texas cities—Lubbock, Abilene, San Angelo—to sign on. A pro-life ordinance would seem to be a slam dunk in a place like Amarillo, a conservative city in the Texas Panhandle that’s been called the “shiny brass buckle” of the Bible Belt. The city spans two counties—Potter County, where nearly seventy per cent of the population voted for Trump in 2020, and Randall County, where almost eighty per cent did. “Voting Republican here, it’s just a given,” a woman standing by a snack table said.
But the campaign for Proposition A was turning out differently in Amarillo. The proposed ordinance goes a step further than banning abortion in the city. It attempts to prohibit people who live in Amarillo from obtaining abortions in other states (with an exception for the life of the mother) and others from even passing through Amarillo on their way to obtain abortions. A woman attending the event with her daughter told me that, although she was “absolutely” pro-life, something about Proposition A didn’t sit right with her. “Months ago, when they first started to push for it, I didn’t understand it,” she said. “And the more I understand it, the less I like it.”
Across town, at the Comanche Trail Church of Christ, a smaller but more fervent crowd had gathered in support of the ordinance. A panel of five women and two men sat on a stage, flanked by posters that read “Vote for Life.” “It is so important that we pass Proposition A—it protects our city,” the moderator, Bonnie Burnett, told the crowd.
In Texas, abortion is illegal in nearly all circumstances. But the downfall of Roe v. Wade has not led to the end of abortions; it has just put more burdens on women seeking them. Around thirty-five thousand Texans received out-of-state abortion care last year, according to the reproductive-rights organization the Guttmacher Institute. Many of them travelled through Amarillo, which sits at the crossroads of Interstates 40 and 27, en route to states such as New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas, where abortion is legal. Proposition A’s supporters say that it will stop “abortion trafficking.” Its opponents call it a travel ban. “This issue has split our community in half,” Tom Scherlen, an Amarillo city-council member, told me. “And it’s only going to get uglier.”