Amarillo is going to decide in November whether or not to “ban” people from traveling through their city on the way to New Mexico for an abortion.Why a conservative Texas mayor defied his peers and put the brakes on an abortion “travel ban” https://t.co/EypKYPqDRj via @TexasTribune
— T.L. Langford (@tlangford) September 26, 2024
How this would work is anybody’s guess. Unless the woman is in the last trimester, it won’t necessarily be obvious she’s pregnant. And asking her where she’s going, and why, won’t be any police officer’s damned business. And unless they’re planning to post police officers at the restaurants, hotel lobbies, and gas stations around town, to keep a sharp eye out for traveling females, what’s the idea here? Moral superiority?
I’ve been through Amarillo more than a few times. They could use the business from travelers going to New Mexico. There are casinos in New Mexico, on Native American reservations. I doubt it bothers the good citizens of Amarillo that people are using their streets, restaurants, and hotels (there ain’t a lot between Amarillo and Santa Fe or Albuquerque to stop at) on the way to gambling, which is also illegal in Texas. In fact, I imagine those local service industries count on it. I’m pretty sure there are billboards in the city advertising the casinos only a few hours away. There are direct benefits in Amarillo to gambling that don’t seem to bother the upright citizens of that city one bit.
So the empty and vaguely moralistic gesture to ban travelers who may be seeking an abortion seems entirely ungrounded in legal or ethical theory to me.
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