The founder of the Texas-based initiative that urges cities and counties to become “sanctuaries for the unborn” says that while the unborn are protected from abortion in Texas, “it doesn’t mean that the work is finished.”

Mark Lee Dickson, founder of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative and a director with Right To Life of East Texas, told CatholicVote that one of his key focuses is on closing up two significant “loopholes”: abortion trafficking and the treatment of the bodies of aborted babies as “waste.”

“We started doing county ordinances as well,” he said:

And we’re working on a city ordinance in Amarillo. And in the ordinances in a post-Roe, Texas, we’re closing a lot of these loopholes that still exist in our state laws. You know, abortion is outlawed in Texas, but that doesn’t mean that the work is finished.

Midlothian, Texas – population 38,635 – became the 68th city to adopt an enforceable ordinance that protects babies from abortion within its limits on February 27. The City Council voted 5-2 to become a Sanctuary City for the Unborn.

Still, Dickson notes the challenge is in closing loopholes that persisted after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

“One of the disappointments in the Midlothian ordinance was that this was an ordinance that we started on quite some time ago. That ordinance they passed was one that we were passing prior to the overturning of Roe v. Wade,” Dickson explained. “And, so, it really didn’t address a number of the loopholes that we’ve recognized since then, and we’ve been working hard to close.”

“And, so, the loopholes we’re closing of course, are things like abortion trafficking, the taking of pregnant mothers across state lines for the purpose of abortion,” he continued:

And another loophole where attempting to close is the reality that there are waste management companies that are picking up from abortion facilities outside of Texas, and they’re bringing those contents back to Texas, for disposal, and there’s nothing in our laws to address this issue….

To date, 51 cities in Texas, and 17 in other states – Nebraska, Ohio, Louisiana, Iowa, New Mexico, and Illinois – have become sanctuary cities for the unborn.

The Texas counties of Mitchell, Goliad, Cochran, Lubbock, and Dawson have all passed ordinances protecting the unborn from abortion and also banning abortion trafficking in the unincorporated parts of their counties.

Lea and Roosevelt Counties in New Mexico have also voted to adopt an ordinance requiring abortionists to comply with federal law in the unincorporated parts of their counties. In New Mexico, Dickson says, that ordinance outlaws abortion de facto due to its reliance on the Comstock Act, an 1873 federal statute that prohibits any person from “knowingly” using the mail system to send any “article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion….”

From Catholic Vote