Abilene City Councilman Lynn Beard: 'Pro-life person' who's cautious with ordinance

Abilene City Councilman Lynn Beard easily describes himself as a “pro-life person.”

He even believes a "sanctuary city for the unborn" ordinance is a good idea for Abilene.

But Beard said he has issues with the content of a current ordinance, also emphasizing he’s not sure a local ordinance is needed, especially when it seems a Supreme Court dismantling Roe v. Wade may be close and Texas’ “Heartbeat Act” is in place.

A recent leaked Supreme Court draft decision “changes the dynamics, for sure,” he said, though he acknowledged the court’s final decision isn’t clear.

“Who knows what (it) will actually be and what restrictions it may or may not impose?” he said.

But if Roe does fall, Senate Bill 8, aka the “Heartbeat Act” will take effect 30 days later, criminalizing abortion statewide after about six weeks.

It also takes effect in the wake of a Supreme Court judgment in a decision that recognizes, in whole or part, the authority of states to prohibit abortion, or adoption of an amendment to the constitution that, wholly or partly, restores authority to the states.

“The penalties are a first-degree felony if death occurs, and a second degree felony if death does not occur, plus a fine of not less than $100,000,” said Beard, a former Abilene police lieutenant.

The legislation also contains “licensing action against the doctor, plus a few other items,” he said.

“The penalties in this law are far higher than any municipal ordinance,” he said. “That eliminates the need for local ordinances, in my opinion."

The city does not have local ordinances, Beard said, declaring murder, burglary, etc. to be illegal.

That’s because, he said, they already are under state law.

“I see the abortion law in the same context,” he said.

Problems ahead?

Beard said people often have used a sanctuary city ordinance passed in Lubbock as a comparison to what might pass in Abilene.

That is not correct, Beard said.

“What’s not being said is the Abilene ordinance, as proposed, is twice as long and has components that don't exist in the Lubbock ordinance,” he said. “The Abilene ordinance has a section which proposes that we should be regulating conduct as it relates to abortion that occurs outside the city limits. There's a whole new section on restricting employer-provided health care.”

Those items, he said, among others, show that the Abilene ordinance “isn’t what happened in Lubbock,” which has a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Abilene does not.

“You can't go anywhere in Abilene and get an elective abortion,” Beard said.

The ordinance itself, he said, is not just longer, but is to his eyes a “dramatic expansion of government authority.”

“I think it bears some study and some conversation,” he said.

No input allowed

Beard lauded Project Destiny, a political group created to help push the signature effort for the ordinance, for meeting requirements to get the ordinance before the council.

But he was inherently uncomfortable with the requirement that the council, if it chose to pass the ordinance outright, had to do so without change.

“I can't (for example) raise an issue about us governing conduct outside the city limits," he said.

That’s why, Beard said, he supported sending the issue to the ballot box.

It took 10% of registered voters to get the ordinance to the council.

Now, he wants to give the remaining 90% a say, he said.

Among provisions that concern Beard is a segment dealing with employer-provided health insurance, which states that any official of the city of Abilene who becomes aware an employer is aiding or abetting abortions by providing coverage in an employee benefits package “shall report that employer to the District Attorney of Taylor and Jones County, and to all other district attorneys with jurisdiction over that employer for criminal prosecution.”

Since “city officials” are not defined in the ordinance, that could be construed to mean any city employee, Beard said.

“They’re all appointed,” he said.

And accusing someone of “aiding and abetting” abortion could be particularly fuzzy, Beard said.

That could be overhearing a conversation in a chain pharmacy about a particular drug or learning about a national chain with insurance that normally covers abortion expenses.

“Where does the reporting threshold stop?” he said. “First of all, if that occurs at a location (in Abilene), why would we let the Jones County district attorney know about that?”

The ordinance goes on to tag “all other district attorneys with jurisdiction over that employer,” Beard said.

“Is that every place that that particular business has a location in Texas?” he asked. “Every county? Is it in the United States? … It doesn’t specify.”

Lubbock’s ordinance, which has been in place for about a year now, has survived litigation fairly well, Beard said.

“All of the components in Lubbock are included in the Abilene ordinance,” he said.

But so are “an immense amount of other things that haven't been litigated in the city of Abilene regulating conduct that takes place outside the city.”

Beard said some conversations he’s had with people supportive of the ordinance indicate they don’t understand it’s not a carbon copy of Lubbock’s.

“This very reason is why I think that this needs to be in the hands of voters because it gives people time,” he said.

Protecting life

Beard did say whether one sees the ordinance as promulgating religion in city government depends on whether one defines the issue of abortion as a “protection of life issue.”

He does, he said, a position informed by his former police career.

“I don't view this just as a religious issue,” he said. “The religious groups, Christian religious groups, are the ones driving this a lot. But they have the right to do that. For me, this is this is a protection of life issue. Everybody has to answer the question for themselves when they think life really begins. For me, it's at conception, and so I view the protection of that life no differently than I did when I started protecting life and the city 24 years ago.”

Beard, who described himself as a "fellow believer," said his desire for a measured approach “has been translated into comments (from supporters) like, ‘If you don't pass this today, babies are going to die.”

“That's a totally false narrative,” he said.

The state's act has cut down substantially the number of abortions that have been performed, he said, and Beard said he does not believe there is imminent possibility of a Planned Parenthood clinic returning to Abilene.

“If there's a market for their service, they're going to have a clinic, which is why I believe they opened in Lubbock, a much larger city,” he said.

With the Heartbeat Act in place, “I don't see them opening a clinic here,” Beard said.

“It just wouldn't make any sense,” he said.

Enforcing the law?

Beard said his inclination when first speaking with the ordinance’s supporters was to recommend letting the abortion question be litigated at the level of the Supreme Court and Heartbeat Act.

“Let's see how some of the court decisions are and then we can craft a stronger ordinance that is in line with (those) court decisions,” he said.

That wasn’t how local advocates proceeded, he said.

Drawing from his experience as a police officer, Beard said it can be at times difficult to prove certain alleged crimes.

“Someone would have to admit to that,” he said of the penalties for aiding and abetting abortions.

An example might be giving instructions over the telephone, the internet or “any other medium of communication,” he said.

“Somebody is going to have to report that I overheard those two people talking on the phone about self-administered abortion," he said. "Well, OK, that makes you a witness. We still you still have to prove the conversation took place. How are you going to do that without a recorded phone call?”

Coercing or pressuring a pregnant mother to have an abortion against their will might be easier to prove, he said.

“But it's still difficult,” he said.

Another issue to Beard is “sending an ordinance to the voter which prohibits the government from enforcing the ordinance until Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey are overturned.”

Looking ahead

Beard said he supports the city having a resident-driven initiative process.

“I don't think it should be too easy, but I don't think it should be too hard," he said.

Some cities use 10% of the number of voters who participated in a recent election, rather than basing it on the number of registered voters, he said.

If the figure was 10% of Beard’s own election year, he said, “that would have been 299 people,” instead of the roughly 6,500 signatures required.

“That’s too low,” he said.

But Beard said he wouldn’t support the total required going higher, either.

“I think if we know as the elected leaders of the city, that one in 10 want this to be an ordinance, I think we have a responsibility to either adopt it or let the people decide,” he said.

Brian Bethel covers city and county government and general news for the Abilene Reporter-News.  If you appreciate locally driven news, you can support local journalists with a digital subscription to ReporterNews.com. 

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Abilene City Councilman Lynn Beard: Pro-life person, but cautious