First, this happened.
In an election-year reversal, San Antonio city leaders voted 6-5 Thursday to fast-track distribution of $100,000 to organizations that provide reproductive services, including emergency contraception and transportation for out-of-state abortion care.
Just months ago, city staff shut down a similar plan, skipping over groups that provide such services after council members spoke against the idea while debating how to distribute a new $500,000 Reproductive Justice Fund.
Since that November decision, some council members had been clamoring to come back and take the issue to a vote, which landed just weeks out from a municipal election that’s become increasingly partisan.
Four sitting council members — Adriana Rocha Garcia (D4), Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6), Manny Pelaez (D8) and John Courage (D9) — are all running for mayor.
Of those, Havrda, who led the charge for Thursday’s vote, was the only one to support the distribution of funds for abortion services — while all three of the council’s other mayoral contenders voted against it.
“We’re watching the consequences of the state abortion bans unfold in real time, and what we’re seeing is a public health crisis,” said Cabello Havrda, an attorney. “Some might ask if this is really the city’s responsibility, and the answer is real simple: ‘Yeah, it sure is.’”
[…]
In the wake of Texas’ 2021 near-total abortion ban, San Antonio is among a handful of cities that have sought other ways to help residents continue accessing abortion services.
Austin, for example, included money in its 2024-2025 budget to help cover the cost of airfare, gas, hotel stays, child care, food and companion travel for people seeking out-of-state abortions.
But Thursday’s decision to add abortion travel to San Antonio’s reproductive health fund comes as the GOP-led Texas Legislature is already working on plans to outlaw such spending.
A bill crafted by state Sen. Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels), who represents part of San Antonio, would ban local governments from giving money to “abortion assistance entities,” which includes paying for travel costs or helping find abortion-inducing medication.
On Thursday, some city leaders were adamant that pending legislation should not stop their efforts to protect their residents, while others were skeptical of a potentially expensive legal fight.
Pelaez, who is also an attorney, contended that the move equated to “lighting $100,000 on fire” given the current political landscape.
“The cost of that lawsuit will eclipse the $100,000 by many orders of magnitude, and we’re going to lose,” he said.
Segovia said that if Campbell’s bill becomes law, the city’s contracts will be written in a way that allows the city to “pivot” and stay in compliance.
San Antonio’s City Council has made more symbolic statements in support of abortion rights, including a “reproductive justice fund” that didn’t really provide abortion funding and faced private litigation; I don’t know where that case stands. I admit that this ordinance’s passage came as a surprise to me, especially after it had been previously brought up.
This, however, was not a surprise, not at all.
On Thursday night, a divided San Antonio City Council voted 6-5 to spend $100,000 on helping residents travel out of state to get abortions.
Less than 24 hours later, Attorney General Ken Paxton sued in state court, arguing San Antonio is “transparently attempting to undermine and subvert Texas law and public policy.” The lawsuit alleges that the fund violates the gift clause of the Texas Constitution, and requests a temporary injunction blocking the funding allocation.
The lawsuit is not unexpected: Paxton previously sued the City of Austin over a similar fund.
San Antonio originally allocated $500,000 for a Reproductive Justice Fund in 2023, in response to Texas’ near-total ban on abortion. After much debate, and a private lawsuit, the money was spent on non-abortion related reproductive health initiatives, like contraception, testing for sexually transmitted infections and health workshops.
I remember the Austin ordinance but didn’t write about it at the time; that lawsuit Paxton filed against them was from late September last year, and I’m sure there was too much other news happening at the time. Be that as it may, I can’t see a path to either of these ordinances ever getting officially adopted. If Sen. Campbell’s bill is somehow not passed, the courts will get in the way, either at the statewide 15th Court of Appeals or SCOTx. It’s fine to take a doomed stand on principle when the situation calls for it, but it’s best when there’s a strategic goal behind such a stand. With all due respect to CM Cabello Havrda, I think her colleague CM Pelaez has it right. The Current has more.
So I was wondering where this mystery $500K check came from and what it was for and found this:
“These contracts will provide services for sexual and reproductive health educational workshops,
evidence-based sexual education in high schools, Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) testing,
contraception (prescribed and over the counter) and wraparound prenatal care services including
doula, midwifery, acupuncture and mental health services. The combined estimated contract value
for services outlined in the scope of the RFP is $499,179.24 for the contract term”. “This ordinance authorizes the execution of the following agreements for services to promote
community capacity-building, healthcare navigation, and reproductive and sexual healthcare:
• Empower House SA – $163,829.24
• Latched Support Inc. – $99,350.00
• San Antonio AIDS Foundation – $180,000.00; and
• Young Women’s Christian Association of San Antonio – $56,000.00.”
I can only surmise that the $500K in question was taxpayer monies somehow ‘given’ to SATX.
This is exacly the kind of expenditures that this Administration and DOGE are targeting…
The organizations listed in the earlier email have histories of compassionate and life-saving programs. The YWCA is over 100 years old. In the spirit of Luke 12:48, I applaud the support for each.
CL: “This is exacly the kind of expenditures that this Administration and DOGE are targeting…”
Indeed. There can be no better endorsement for these funds.
FOCUS SHOULD BE ON PREVENTION, NOT FETICIDE
Reproductive “justice” is the wrong framing.
It’s a question of sexual conduct and personal responsiblity. If, as a city/state/national priority, the goal is to prevent unintended pregnancy AND sexually transmitted diseases, they should use public funds to instal condom vending machines in public restrooms, high schools, and other public venues, perhaps subsidize the product.
Location decision to be made depending on which target demographic’s incidence of pregnancy and STD is to be reduced. That would be an efficiency and effectiveness issue for allocation in light of resource constraint.
On the other hand, there is a low birth rate problem in much if not all of the technologically advanced world, so perhaps pregnancy should not be discouraged, but obviously it’s more desirable, societally speaking, for young people in their 20s-early 30s to get together and breed, and to encourage it for people who will make good co-parents.
It’s a public policy issue, not one of “justice”, whatever that’s supposed to mean in this context. Birth control means and methods are freely and widely available already. It’s not like these things are prohibited. So the “justice” issue in terms of legality, access, and availabiltiy, it’s really a nonissue.