Austin City Council making plans to protect Austinites abortion rights

AUSTIN, Texas — Austin City Council members are positioning themselves to protect Austinites reproductive choices if the supreme court decides to overturn Roe V Wade. District 2 council member Vanessa Fuentes is a co-sponsor of council member José “Chito” Vela’s abortion rights resolution called the grace act.

“We want to assure communities that we stand ready to fight back for reproductive health,” she said.

It’s designed to decriminalize abortions in Austin by ensuring that no city funds can be used to report or investigate abortions. It would also require the police to look abortions as a low level priority.

“By passing this type of policy recommendation, we are assuring that our police are able to spend their time focused on violent crimes and not abortions,” said Fuentes.

The move comes as the country waits to see if the U.S Supreme Court will overturn Roe V. Wade, a decades long standing law that’s protected women’s reproductive choices. If that happens, Texas has a trigger law that would ban terminating pregnancies making the procedure illegal.

If passed by city council, civil rights attorney Austin Kaplan believes the resolution will shield Austin residents from legal prosecution.

“Texas, intending to jail doctors for performing medical services that are approved today by the American Medical Association and adding insult to injury, Texas plans to also revoke those doctor's medical licenses. So any step toward protecting 50 years of reproductive rights and access to abortion is a positive step. Any step toward protecting 50 years of reproductive rights and access to abortions is the right step,” said Kaplan.

Fuentes says this is just one way the city is working to protect women’s reproductive rights. A few weeks ago, city council took action to update its non-discrimination ordinance to ensure that no one is discriminated against based on their reproductive health decisions.

“We wanted to make sure that we were acting to the full extent possible that is permitted at the local level and does not supersede any of our state laws,” said Fuentes.

Kaplan says Austin is the first city that’s working towards decriminalizing abortion arrests and he hopes their plans will motive others to do the same.

Council members are waiting on a ruling before filing the resolution so their efforts could be tailored to the justices' decision.