On Thursday, February 9, 2023, Texas Alliance for Life, Inc., a statewide pro-life organization based in Austin, and San Antonio resident Maria Teresa Ramirez Morris, petitioned the Supreme Court of Texas to block the San Antonio City Council from certifying the so-called “Justice” Charter amendment for the May 6, 2023, election.

Texas Alliance for Life’s emergency petition for writ of mandamus shows that the proposed charter amendment, which contains six distinct amendments shoe-horned into one proposition, violates state law and must be blocked and separated into distinct proposals. State law clearly requires that voters have an opportunity to vote on single-subject amendments.

Among the six proposals is language that would de-prioritize and decriminalize state law that protects unborn babies from abortion from conception through birth, except in rare cases to protect the mother’s life. Under the amendment, any abortion in San Antonio — even secret abortions on minor girls, very late, third-trimester abortions, and abortions performed by pimps and sex traffickers — could not be stopped or even investigated by the San Antonio police.

Amy O’Donnell, Texas Alliance for Life’s Communications Director, who grew up in San Antonio, said, “The proposed charter amendment facilitates and encourages illegal and back alley abortions. It is an attack on innocent lives in San Antonio — the lives of countless unborn babies who will die from the abortions and on the lives and hearts of desperate women undergoing illegal abortions, even those performed by sex traffickers. It’s also an attack on officers who take an oath to enforce and uphold the laws, by directing them to act in violation of what they’ve committed to do.”

“The people of Texas, acting through their elected members of the Legislature and the Governor, have determined that state law should protect unborn children and their mothers from abortion,” O’Donnell continued. “That is what the City Council has an obligation to do.”

Should the City Council set this on the May ballot, Texas Alliance for Life, working with local allies, will implement a vigorous grassroots campaign to turn out voters against it beginning immediately.