Last week, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against the City of Lubbock, Texas by abortion giant Planned Parenthood over a recently approved ordinance that prohibits abortions within city limits.
The nation’s leading abortion provider opened a facility in Lubbock last year and began performing abortions in April.
As we reported last week, they were then forced to cease doing so after the ordinance went into effect on June 1 after being confirmed by voters in a May special election.
When Lubbock approved their Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance, they became both the largest city in the nation to do so and the first with an active abortion clinic.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix dismissed Planned Parenthood’s suit challenging the sanctuary city status on the grounds that the organization lacked jurisdiction.
“Because plaintiffs fail to show, as they must, that they have Article III standing to sue the city, the Court dismisses the case for lack of jurisdiction,” the judge wrote.
The Epoch Times noted that the case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning it can be brought forward again.
The judge said that while Planned Parenthood claimed the ordinance was invalid because it violated federal constitutional rights, they were also forced to admit that “even if the court gave them everything they wanted, the court’s ruling would not bar private citizens from bringing the suit in state court, bind the state judiciary to its ruling, or force the ordinance’s repeal.”
The dismissal was praised by Right to Life East Texas Director Mike Lee Dickson, who has been one of the driving forces behind the Lone Star State’s sanctuary city for the unborn movement.
“We have said from the beginning that this ordinance is completely bulletproof from pre-enforcement lawsuits,” he wrote on Facebook, as reported by the Epoch Times. “The Court’s ruling today is an emphatic vindication of that.”
Prior to Tuesday’s ruling, Texas’ Solicitor General, Judd Stone, affirmed in a letter that Lubbock’s city ordinance does not violate state law.
“In our view, Planned Parenthood has not shown that Lubbock’s ordinance is inconsistent with state law. To the extent that the Court finds state law to be ambiguous regarding the merits of Planned Parenthood’s claims, the Court should abstain from exercising jurisdiction,” he wrote.
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