Portland to Consider Ban on Texas Travel, Trade over Abortion Law

Policy

Demonstrators at a Planned Parenthood rally at the State Capitol in Austin, Texas, April 5, 2017. (Ilana Panich-Linsman/Reuters)

The Portland City Council is set to vote Wednesday on a proposal to ban trading goods and services with Texas and to prohibit state-employee business travel to the Lone Star State over its new law that prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected.

Portland’s mayor announced the vote last week and claimed that Texas’s new law, which allows any individual to sue the people “knowingly” assisting a prohibited abortion, “does not demonstrate concern for the health, safety, and well-being of those who many become pregnant.”

“This law does not recognize or show respect for the human rights of those who may become pregnant,” Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler said in a statement. “This law rewards private individuals for exercising surveillance and control over others’ bodies. It violates the separation of church and state. And, it will force people to carry pregnancies against their will.”

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