Individuals are further forbidden to “knowingly aid or abet” anyone seeking transport to an abortion, including “offering, providing, or lending money, digital currency, or other resources” to that effect.
More broadly, the measure made it “unlawful for any person to procure or perform an elective abortion of any type and at any stage of pregnancy” in the county’s unincorporated area.
County Judge Curtis Parrish, who abstained from the vote, said the measure “as written has many legal problems.”
“The issue isn’t whether we should stand up for the rights of the unborn or the safety of the pregnant mother, but how do we make this ordinance stand up to the scrutiny of state and federal appellate courts?” Parrish said, according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
Texas had in 2021 already enacted a statewide “trigger law” that would ban abortion throughout the state in the event of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized abortion throughout the United States. The Texas law went into effect after Roe’s repeal last year by the Supreme Court in the case Dobbs v. Jackson.
Lubbock joins Goliad, Mitchell, and Cochran counties in passing an abortion travel ban.