The San Antonio City Council will once again discuss plans to fund travel expenses for residents’ out-of-state abortions — at the same time state lawmakers are actively working to outlaw such spending by municipal governments.
On Friday a proposal to spend $100,000 on grants for organizations that provide home pregnancy tests, transportation to abortion care, emergency contraception and other reproductive services advanced from the council’s Community Health Committee on a 4-0 vote.
Councilwomen Teri Castillo (D5), Sukh Kaur (D1), Adriana Rocha Garcia (D4) and Phyllis Viagran (D3) supported it. Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito (D7), who also serves on the committee, was absent.
It’s expected to go before the full council at a future meeting on a date that has yet to be determined.
“This is using taxpayer money responsibly because one, women pay taxes, and two, when we look at the poverty rate, 20% of the San Antonians live in poverty,” Viagran said on Friday. “The first thing [women living in poverty are] going to say no to is their health care, which they shouldn’t, so they rely on these organizations to help.”
San Antonio already solicited proposals from groups that help women access abortion services in its initial distribution of a $500,000 reproductive health fund — created during the city’s budget amendment process in the fall of 2023.
But city leaders ultimately turned down applications from two groups that included these services as part of their submission, amid heated council debates about how the money should be spent.
This latest proposal is expected to loop those applicants back in, and expand the city’s reproductive health fund to include this new list of services going forward.
“I was hoping this work would have come out in the first round,” Kaur said. “We’re hopeful that this fund will be a permanent fund, and not something that we have to advocate for as a modification every year.”
Meanwhile, the Texas Legislature returned to work in January, and GOP lawmakers are actively working to stop such spending by local governments, after it became popular in response to the state’s near total abortion ban.
Texas law already bans local governments from giving money to abortion providers and their affiliates. Now Senate Bill 730 seeks to expand on that, banning local governments from giving money to “abortion assistance entities,” defined as people who aid women seeking abortion services. This includes paying for travel costs or helping find abortion-inducing medication.
“We must close loopholes that allow cities like Austin and San Antonio to misuse taxpayer funds in ways that undermine our state’s pro-life policies,” said Sen. Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels), who represents Northeast San Antonio and introduced the bill last month.
Austin also included money in its 2024-2025 budget to help cover the cost of airfare, gas, hotel stays, child care, food and companion travel for people seeking out-of-state abortions.
