When Texas voters went to the polls May 1, they elected a new Republican member of the House of Representatives and another Republican will be elected in a runoff on July 27, since both candidates are from that party.
These gains further whittle down the Democrat majority and present a major win for pro-life.
But another victory for children in the womb took place in Lubbock when voters made their city the 24th municipality in the Lone Star State to be declared a "Sanctuary City for the Unborn," that is, a city that passed an ordinance making abortions illegal within the city limits.
With a population of nearly 254,000 people, it is the largest city to adopt the moniker.
I’m grateful for every voter in every city who declared their support for the sanctity of life but the 62 to 38% vote in Lubbock was particularly momentous because it is the only one of the sanctuary cities that had an abortion business — Planned Parenthood — operating within its jurisdiction.
The nation’s number one abortion seller set up shop in Lubbock in October 2020 and started killing its youngest citizens in April of this year.
Another thing that makes the Lubbock ordinance unique is that it allows family members, and indeed, all Texans, to sue anyone — except the mother herself — who helps to procure an abortion.
That’s an important addition to the ordinance. Because Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), made abortion legal throughout the country, the Lubbock law cannot be enforced until Roe v. Wade is overturned. But the lawsuits can commence immediately, which no doubt was behind Planned Parenthood’s decision to stop killing babies in Lubbock and to sue in federal court to overturn the ordinance.
What ordinarily occurs when laws protecting babies are passed in cities and states is that the usual suspects — Planned Parenthood the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) among them — find a pro-abortion federal judge and file suit to challenge the law.
The judge orders an injunction and the law is stopped cold until the suit can wend its way through the court system, which can take years and claim untold lives.
But that’s not what happened in Lubbock. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU did indeed challenge the law in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
The suit landed in the courtroom of Judge James Wesley Hendrix, who was originally nominated to the post by former President Barack Obama.
He was not confirmed during Obama’s administration, but he was re-nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate 89 to 1 in 2019.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., was the lone nay-sayer but seven Democrats then vying for the White House missed the vote.
In what must have been a shock to Planned Parenthood, Hendrix dismissed the suit, saying the abortion business lacked standing to sue and that the court had a "lack of jurisdiction" to invalidate the sanctuary city ordinance.
Not even a federal judge can stop a private citizen from suing in state court.
Lubbock’s ordinance went into effect June 1.
The Sanctuary City movement has spread beyond Texas, with Blue Hill, Nebraska, and Lebanon, Ohio also outlawing abortion within their jurisdictions.
Other municipalities have employed various means to try to protect their most vulnerable citizens.
Colorado has tried statewide ballot amendments to outlaw abortion beyond 22 weeks but these efforts have not yet succeeded. I remember waiting up past midnight in 2013 to see if a late-term abortion ban in Albuquerque, New Mexico would succeed but it, too, failed.
Citizens in Macon, Georgia, took matters into their own hands when an abortion provider was trying to sneak into town.
Pro-lifers turned out in front of the proposed abortion mill on a daily basis.
A full-page ad was purchased in the Macon Telegraph, listing the names, phone numbers and email addresses of council members and asking residents to intervene on the abortion seller’s approved zoning application.
The city was blanketed with yellow lawn signs opposing the abortion business. Finally, a pro-life doctor in town bought the building, hence preventing Summit Medical Center from turning it into a killing center.
Most cities would not be able to find a citizen with the means and the pro-life commitment to do what the doctor in Macon, Georgia did, but the Lubbock ordinance gives municipalities across the nation — even pro-life pockets within abortion-loving states like California and New York — a new way to protect the unborn and to keep abortion providers out.
Fr. Frank Pavone is one of the most prominent pro-life leaders in the world. Read Fr. Frank Pavone Reports — More Here.