This story has been updated.<\/p>\n
A new law barring the use of public funds to assist Texas patients seeking abortions outside the state has resulted in the dismissal of the state attorney general\u2019s lawsuit against the city of San Antonio.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton\u2019s office claimed victory in the lawsuit Friday after the case was non-suited, meaning it was dismissed without a finding for either side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTexas respects the sanctity of unborn life, and I will always do everything in my power to prevent radicals from manipulating the system to murder innocent babies,\u201d Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. \u201cIt is illegal for cities to fund abortion tourism with taxpayer funds. San Antonio\u2019s unlawful attempt to cover the travel and other expenses for out-of-state abortions has now officially been defeated.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Antonio\u2019s city attorney dismissed the notion that the city did anything wrong and that the state won the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis litigation was both initiated and abandoned by the State of Texas,\u201d the San Antonio city attorney\u2019s office said in a statement Friday afternoon. \u201cIn other words, the City did not drop any claims; the State of Texas, through the Texas Office of the Attorney General, dropped its claims.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last April, San Antonio City Council members approved $100,000 to its Reproductive Justice Fund to help support abortion-related travels. Paxton\u2019s office sued the next day, arguing that the city was \u201ctransparently attempting to undermine and subvert Texas law and public policy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The lawsuit alleged that the fund violates the gift clause of the Texas Constitution, and requested a temporary injunction blocking the funding allocation. The state\u2019s 15th Court of Appeals sided with Paxton, granting a temporary injunction to stop the city from disbursing $100,000 into the fund.<\/p>\n
Then in August, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 33 that bars the use of public money to fund \u201clogistical support\u201d for abortion. In addition, the law allows Texas residents to file a civil suit if they believe a city violated the law. \u201cThe City believed the law, prior to the passage of SB 33, allowed the uses of the fund for out-of-state abortion travel that were discussed publicly,\u201d the city attorney\u2019s office said. \u201cAfter SB 33 became law and no longer allowed those uses, the City did not proceed with the procurement of those specific uses\u2014consistent with its intent all along that it would follow the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The following month, the city of Austin shut down its abortion travel fund. The city had allocated $400,000 to its Reproductive Healthcare Logistics Fund in 2024 to assist women traveling to other states for an abortion with travel, food and lodging funding.<\/p>\n
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story has been updated. A new law barring the use of public funds to assist Texas patients…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":505722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[3789,5229,58248,43961,18880,226508,7202,7203,358,36329,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,11887],"class_list":{"0":"post-505721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-abortion","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-city-of-san-antonio","11":"tag-icymi","12":"tag-ken-paxton","13":"tag-reproductive-justice-fund","14":"tag-san-antonio","15":"tag-sanantonio","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-texas-tribune","18":"tag-tx","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-wc-less-than-500"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115869843727900736","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}