The campaign is Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn, which has been embraced in 62 municipalities large and small that state abortion is not welcome in their community.
Mark Lee Dickson, who founded the movement, tells AFN the latest city to declare itself a pro-life community is Odessa, Texas. With a population of 115,000 it is among the largest participants to date.
“The Odessa ordinance,” he says, “actually goes further than some of the other ordinances do in prohibiting abortion performed on residents of Odessa, even in New Mexico and Colorado."
In Bellevue, Nebraska, pro-lifers there are currently gathering signatures to introduce a similar ordinance in that city, a suburb of Omaha. The pro-life activists are about halfway through the process although they have faced threats and intimidation.
“Notes have been left at a Catholic student center and a church,” Dickson says. “Those notes are meant to push us back, to try to discourage us from finishing this initiative.”
Police are investigating the threatening notes and the pro-life activists remain at work.
