BREAKING: Sanctuary City for the Unborn Founder Responds to Former Mayor on 'Extreme' Ballot Proposition

 

SAN ANGELO – The founder of the Sanctuary City for the Unborn movement has responded to former San Angelo Mayor J. W. Lown's editorial in San Angelo LIVE!  

Mark Lee Dickson submitted the following to San Angelo LIVE! Tuesday: 

Recently former San Angelo Mayor Joseph (J.W.) Lown wrote a letter to the editor in opposition to the San Angelo Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance which is on the November 8 ballot. Lown calls the proposal “extreme” but fails to recognize that the majority of that which he critiques is already the law of Texas. 

This proposed SCFTU ordinance is right to recognize “abortion at all times and at all stages of pregnancy” to be “an act of murder unless the mother’s life is in danger” - which aligns with the laws of the State of Texas. In this ordinance abortion is outlawed from the moment of conception and contains no exceptions for abortions in cases of rape or incest - which is the same position taken the pre-Roe v. Wade abortion statutes and the Human Life Protection Act. 

In his editorial Lown attacks Section 8.12.003 of the proposed ordinance, stating, “Are you an employer? Do you want to provide coverage for abortions for your employees? Under this proposed ordinance you cannot. It would be a crime.” Lown makes it sound like this proposed ordinance prevents businesses from doing something that they can do right now - but that is just not true. It is already a crime for businesses to provide insurance coverage for abortions as it was explicitly prohibited by the laws of our state since 2017. 

Next, Lown attacks Section 8.12.002(b) of the proposed ordinance, stating, “Do you have a spouse, a sister or a daughter who needs an abortion? You’d be legally at risk for driving her to Dallas.” Due to the pre-Roe v. Wade statutes, which are now able to be enforced again since Roe v. Wade was overturned, elective abortions have completely shut down in Dallas - as well as the entire State of Texas. 

Abortion, which is illegal in all of Texas, is illegal for a reason. Abortion is illegal in Texas because abortion hurts women and ends the life of their children. This why it is illegal in this ordinance to “possess or distribute abortion-inducing pills in the City of San Angelo.” If I had to take a guess, I would guess Lown has never had to counsel a grieving woman over a dead baby in her toilet which was caused by the taking of abortion-inducing drugs. Perhaps Lown has never had to answer a woman who is sobbing uncontrollably who does not know if she should flush the dead baby down the toilet or to remove the dead baby for a proper burial in her backyard. 

Lown, this ordinance is not what is extreme and divisive. Abortion is what is extreme and divisive. It kills a mother’s child and separates that child from her for the rest of her life. 

What this ordinance does, which the State Laws do not, is allow private citizens to sue the abortionist and anyone who is aiding and abetting the abortionist for the death of the unborn child. This ordinance is not about turning “neighbor against neighbor,” but this ordinance is about putting laws into place which make sure that if our leaders ignore abortions in our community, those women and children will have a fighting chance because we will have the power to do something. 

This proposed ordinance is about standing with our neighbors and saying, “San Angelo is a city where Mothers and their Children will be free from the life-long trauma caused by abortion. San Angelo is a city which chooses life.” 

Mark Lee Dickson

Director, Right To Life of East Texas

Founder, Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative 

Author, San Angelo Sanctuary City for the Unborn Ordinance 

Mark Lee Dickson Sanctuary City for the Unborn Founder (Contributed/Mark Lee Dickson)

Mark Lee Dickson Sanctuary City for the Unborn Founder (Contributed/Mark Lee Dickson)

Subscribe to the LIVE! Daily

The LIVE! Daily is the "newspaper to your email" for San Angelo. Each content-packed edition has weather, the popular Top of the Email opinion and rumor mill column, news around the state of Texas, news around west Texas, the latest news stories from San Angelo LIVE!, events, and the most recent obituaries. The bottom of the email contains the most recent rants and comments. The LIVE! daily is emailed 5 days per week. On Sundays, subscribers receive the West Texas Real Estate LIVE! email.

Required

Most Recent Videos

Comments

Mark,

This may be hard for you to understand but sadly some women who get pregnant do not want their children.  What about the children who will be born to addicted mother's, who will be born to homeless women, who will be born to live a life of abuse and possibly be murdered by the hand of the parent you forced to give birth to this baby.  How about the children that will be born with disability and learning/behavioral problem's because daddy, brother, uncle or grandpaw decided you would make a great Sxx toy.  Have you ever held the hand of a rape victim who found out she was pregnate with her rapist's baby and now has to live with the trauma, guilt, embarassment for 9 months.

I can tell you there IS NOT enough foster homes for the children we have in care now.  Ask a CPS worker how many times she has had to spend the night {away from her own family } in the CPS office because there was not a foster home within 250 miles for the children she had just removed from a unsafe home.  It is hard to get older kids adopted, plus it take a year or more to acually terminate parental rights so that the children are free to be adopted.  Not many home have the training or want to deal with the mental health issues these kids develop due to the parent, or other relatives.  I work in the foster care system and have adopted 2 children myself and I can tell you the anger, pains, the feelings of abandoment, feeling unloved and worthless plus the behavioral and mental problem's some of these children are dealing with makes it hard to find them suitable homes.  I have even seen where a family had adopted a child but brought them back to CPS care due to the problems they have. "Wow, nothing like being rejected twice.".  Suicides, sxx trafficking, prostitution, homeless, and teen mothers is what you will be facing if you and other push your will upon others.  Get to building homes for these children because we will need them.

 

NIP, Wed, 10/26/2022 - 16:12

This proposal and the current laws ARE extreme and unconditional. They allow for no leeway as to person's circumstances, or the judgment of living, breathing adult individuals regarding conditions of their own lives. It gives thought to neither the timing nor development of a pregnancy, whether one day or one month. It is a blanket policy that will have EXTREME and dire consequences for those born of unplanned pregnancy and the society in which they live, because regardless of how much those supporting this ordnance. say (and WANT to believe) that they will support and care for those children born into those circumstances, those people will either never know about what they have caused by this force of pregnancy, and even if they do, they will not provide for the life they say they want to protect. Only if we have total socialism with those children given true support from pre-natal care through the first eighteen years of life, with food, shelter, and education, can they truly be care for and if one looks around, society doesn't even do 1/1000 of that now. What makes any rational person think that our government, society, churches, or any other support will be able or try to care for the child or the family. This is pure desire to control and not truly support. If Dickson thinks that the diapers he brought to our city from east Texas is support, that's laughable. Insane. I challenge him and anyone else who supports this ordnance to prove that you have the desire and means to provide the $310,605 per child that is the 2022 cost. This direction of thought just means more children in poverty, poorer, less educated, and either abused or dead. Choose healthy families who can care for children and manage their own lives. 

NIP, Wed, 10/26/2022 - 16:29

When will self-righteous, sanctimonious know-it-alls quit trying to control others without any real knowledge or thought of the consequences that follow to individuals and societies at large. No one is truly willing to fork over the $310,605 per "child" that it takes to raise them, whether or not that child is adopted or reared by the birth parent. So let's just dump all that "need" into the social system of protective services and welfare because that's where it will end up anyway. All the talk about "support" of undesired/unplanned pregnancies is pure BS. Put your money where your mouth is and that doesn't mean buying diapers. That is possibly the weakest gesture I have ever seen by Dickson is when he brought diapers to West Texas for "support" drumming up this nonsense. Laughable. Just like the thought that all those babies will be adopted. The people I saw at those city council meetings were predominantly older, white, males. I will be so interested to see them adopt those less than bright white and mentally/physically challenged babies.

Enough. When you can get pregnant, then you can understand that it is not your choice (warts and all) to make.

When all the smoke clears from these comments... the people will decide what they want with their votes.  There are usually well-thought out and moving arguments from both sides, but the will of the people should prevail.

 

Post a comment to this article here:

X Close