City not devoting resources for abortion investigations

San Marcos police won’t devote city resources to investigate abortion, according to Director of Public Safety Chase Stapp.

Stapp spoke to the San Marcos City Council during a discussion regarding protection of abortion rights where he highlighted an administrative directive handed down to the San Marcos Police Department by Chief of Police Stan Standridge.

“The Department shall not investigate elective abortion-related crimes unless an abortion or attempted abortion causes the loss of life or serious injury of the expectant mother unrelated to a lawful medical procedure,” the administrative directive states.

“The intent, I think, of this administrative directive is to convey to the officers that we’re not expending city funds, human resources to investigate abortions,” Stapp told councilmembers Tuesday. “We will always investigate deaths that occur, that could’ve been the result of unlawful activity. So, it’s leaving that option on the table.”

City council’s discussion regarding abortion came after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The court’s ruling put into effect Texas’ “trigger law” which will ban all abortions in the state with the exception only to save the life of a pregnant patient or if the patient risks “substantial impairment” of a bodily function.

Councilmembers Maxfield Baker and Alyssa Garza put the item on Tuesday’s agenda. Baker highlighted action taken by the Austin City Council — the GRACE Act — which limits the enforcement of Texas’ abortion laws.

The act passed by the Austin City Council amends the City of Austin’s city code to “prohibit discrimination based on reproductive health actions for housing, public accommodations, employment and employment by City contractors. This means no one could be fired, evicted, denied housing or denied a job for getting an abortion.”

The GRACE Act also prevents city funding from being used to catalog reports of abortion, miscarriage or other healthcare acts. The act also “establishes equitable access to contraception as essential to family planning, reproductive freedom and public health,” and directs Austin’s city manager to address the “feasibility of providing City employees with benefits, such as travel and accommodation expenses, to help make sure they have access to abortions and other reproductive services no longer available in the state.”

“As we’ve seen in the news and in our headlines, the need for cities to do something as a counterpoint to the legislation that was passed in Texas is palatable,” Baker said.

Baker brought up concerns that funding would be used by the city to prosecute or investigate anyone who has an abortion.

“We talk about how thinly-stretched our police officers are and to force this on them in the context of all the other stuff going on,” Baker said before Mayor Jane Hughson added that it’s not something the city should be seeking out.

“That’s the thing, right, everything is so new that our community members are afraid,” Baker said. “They don’t know whether or not police officers are going to pursue this or where it’s going to land on their priority list.”

During public comment Tuesday, a woman, whose name the Daily Record has chosen not to share, said she recently underwent an illegal abortion.

“As I speak I am still bleeding from an illegal abortion I had just last week,” the woman said while pausing to cry. She added that she didn’t find out she was pregnant until seven weeks and claimed that she went to a free clinic that “advertised itself to be bipartisan and an unbiased resource for all.”

“I told them I was in a verbally and emotionally toxic relationship with what would have been the father, and I’m not ready to have a child, and they still made me hear the heartbeat and tried convincing me to work things out,” she said later adding that she was still afraid to get a medical check up “to make sure I passed the fetus properly and safely because I’m afraid they’ll arrest me for handling it the way that I had.”

During council’s discussion, Councilmember Jude Prather said the woman’s comments highlighted how this issue is affecting people in San Marcos.

“During citizen a comment, I thought I heard one of our citizens, a young woman mentioning that she had an illegal abortion and she was still bleeding,” Prather said. “That’s kind of a warning on how this issue is going to affect people in our town. This is a state issue and Texas has taken that all-or-none approach when this is such a nuanced and complex issue.”

Stapp said the administrative directive put in place by Standridge regarding abortions is already in effect for SMPD employees.

“I was unaware that the San Marcos Police Department already was moving forward with the chief’s memo about this not being either a priority or that they wouldn’t help investigate or they wouldn’t prosecute,” Prather said. “I think that’s actually a step in the right direction on how we need to be handling this.”

Baker suggested adding links to the city’s website for resources on reproductive health as well as to have council consider providing resources for city employees to support access to abortions.

Hughson was concerned about the legality of both providing links on the city’s website as well as funding for abortions.

“What I’m concerned about is the law says if you are aiding and abetting, are we going to be considered aiding and abetting by putting a link on our website to what you could do,” Hughson said. “I think we would definitely if we were providing government money to do this stuff.”

City council didn’t take any formal action on the item but was looking to create a council committee to discuss abortion rights.