“It Was Time To Get Creative” : Austin, Texas Fights For Abortion Justice With Grace Act
Spreading this act is some of the most urgent work local government can do in red states. And they don’t need an election to make it happen.
O n May 2nd, the sun was hidden behind a leaden sky in Austin, Texas; the air was thick with heat and dread. Politico had leaked SCOTUS’ decision to overturn Roe v Wade and in a state with one of the most draconian abortion trigger laws — there is no exception for sex crimes of rape or incest, only for the “life of the mother,” which is dangerously vague — the office of Austin City Council District 4 was reeling.
“When we first heard of the Dobbs decision, everyone I know, their stomach just dropped into their shoes,” Jenna Hanes, Policy & Communications Advisor for District 4 under José “Chito” Vela told me. Hanes began our interview describing the unlawful arrest of Lizelle Herrera on a murder charge for allegedly having caused the “death of an individual by self-induced abortion,” and the harrowing tale of Amanda Eid who nearly died from sepsis after her water broke four months into her pregnancy and doctors refused her an abortion for fear of imprisonment.
“This was an incredibly treatable miscarriage but instead doctors had to get the lawyer on the phone in the middle of the night and see if they could care for this person,” says Hanes. “I know that’s kind of a dark way to start, but when we’re talking about Texas the stakes are intense. This is the kind of hatred towards bodily autonomy for people who are pregnant in Texas.”
But when the going gets tough, the tough get clever.
“The day after the leak, our office got together,” says Hanes. “We had begun to panic because we all know what the quote-unquote Human Life Protection Act entails, that’s the trigger ban in Texas — we knew how extreme it would be. We knew people would die. My boss said, ‘we have to do something.’ It was time to get creative.”
The Grace Act — which stands for “Guarding the Right to Abortion Care for Everyone” — is a uniquely inspiring story of local government choosing innovation and agility over bureaucracy and fear.
The bill not only prevents city funds from being used to solicit or catalog reports of abortion, but asks the police to make investigating abortion their lowest priority. The act is based on Austin’s similar tactics around the decriminalization of marijuana.
“It is not legal in any state I can think of to tell the police they’re not allowed to investigate a crime,” explains Hanes, “but now in Austin, if they want to investigate abortion, they have to investigate every report of jaywalking, or bicycle theft as well.”
A mere week after Roe was overturned, the Grace Act was unanimously passed by Austin City Council, offering potential protection for more than 470,000 women calling Austin home, and openly standing up for reproductive rights in Texas.
“When it comes to doing things like outright challenging the Texas abortion ban — something that the people across Texas have worked very hard to put into place — you know that is asking for trouble,” Hanes says.
“So the decision that we had to make was, ‘are we gonna do their work for them? Are we going to prevent ourselves from doing good things just because we know the Texas legislature isn’t gonna like it? The answer to that has got to be no. The only thing we can do is try to have strength in numbers.”
The Council worked alongside a host of advocacy groups, abortion funds in the area, organizers and activists — “they were all swamped, as I’m sure you can imagine, but we worked with everyone who would talk to us about it” — but Hanes cites Local Progress as a particularly powerful partner.
Together they worked with city leaders across Texas, successfully passing the Grace Act in El Paso City, Dallas and Houston: places that have “real political clout beyond being the ‘liberal city of Texas.’” Hanes says that when other cities pass similar policies, it gives Austin strength and visibility they wouldn’t have otherwise.
As of today, the Grace Act has passed in some version in 36 municipalities across the country in 14 different states — including New Orleans, Louisiana, and Atlanta, Georgia. Hanes explains that a number of cities like Chicago have passed preemptive abortion deprioritization bills, which apply to any future request from an out-of-state law enforcement agency if a long-armed bill is passed in any state in the country. (Meaning, Texas law enforcement asking out-of-state law enforcement to provide information on Texas residents getting abortions outside of state lines.)
District 4 in Austin Texas is a stark reminder of the often untapped power and impact that local government can wield when they use legislative creativity.
“We take every violation of our rights that they throw at us and dodge it the best we can so that we give lawyers something to work with.”
Hanes says it’s also a call to arms. Anyone can take the Grace Act to their city council or county commissioners and urge them to protect their communities locality by locality.
“This is the most urgent work we’re doing. Trying to spread the Grace Act.”
