Today the Dallas City Council Quality of Life, Arts, & Culture Committee held a meeting to discuss just one agenda item: “Consideration of protection of reproduction rights for Dallas residents.”

More specifically, they met to discuss the Dallas version of the “GRACE Act.” In case you’re wondering what “GRACE” stands for in this instance, it’s “Guarding the Right to Abortion Care for Everyone.” If you want to watch a video of the meeting yourself, you can: https://dallastx.swagit.com/play/08022022-875

I found out about this meeting yesterday, and resolved to attend in order to speak up in opposition to this Act. It was held at 3:30 in the afternoon at Dallas City Hall. I arrived early, and ended up being one of very few people to attend in person. Most of the others who did were press. I sat in the front row.

The Quality of Life, Arts, & Culture Committee has seven members: Adam Bazaldua (Chair), Chad West (Vice Chair), Carolyn King Arnold, Paula Blackmon, Omar Narvaez, Paul Ridley, and Casey Thomas. All members were in attendance except for West who attended virtually, and Thomas, who was absent. In addition to the six participating members, three other members of the Dallas City Council attended: Gay Willis, Jaynie Schultz, and Jesse Moreno.

Committee Chairman Bazaldua is the one who actually called for the meeting. He announced it on July 30 via Twitter:

After calling the meeting to order, Chairman Bazaldua called on Dallas Executive Assistant City Attorney Casey Burgess to present the details of the GRACE Act, which is essentially a two part policy recommendation:

1. City funds shouldn’t be used to solicit, catalog, report, or investigate reports of abortion.
2. Police should make investigating abortion their lowest priority.

The result of the implementation of these policies would be that as far as the City of Dallas law enforcement is concerned, abortion in the City of Dallas would be legal. Of course, this would not necessarily preclude other law enforcement organizations, such as the Dallas Sheriff, or Texas Department of Public Safety from conducting such investigations, but given manpower limitations and other issues, it’s unlikely that either of these organizations would fill the gap left by Dallas Police Department.

After Burgess presented the details of the act, Chairman Bazaldua opened up the floor (to the other Council members) for questions. This is when it became clear that the entire meeting was essentially a kangaroo court.

No one dissented in any way. All eight of the other members heartily supported the Act, and made some of the following points:

• Our constituents support reproductive rights
• 76% of Texans support legal abortion
• Investigating abortions does nothing to protect our community
• Dallas must send a message to residents, businesses, and visitors, that we support reproductive freedom
• This is a privacy issue, and should stay between a woman and her family/provider
• DPD is already short staffed, and we don’t need to add to their work load
• This is a philosophical declaration, which we support
• The State legislature overreached
• We support women’s right to choose
• This is about healthcare
• Keep DPD focused on other things
• It’s just good governance to pass this resolution
• We should be good stewards of our resources

One Councilman deserves extra mention. Councilman Omar Narvaez, who is also the Deputy Mayor Pro Tem went on a rant about how it’s his job to support cis-women, trans men, and others who might need to have an abortion. He thanked Chairman Bazaldua for having the “guts” to have this meeting (it’s not gutsy to do something for which literally everyone else in the room is extremely supportive). He also said that while his office had received a lot of support from his constituents for this act, the only people who had opposed it had been straight, white men. How he knew the race, gender, and sexual orientation of each of these individuals, I’m not really sure, but he said it with a lot of gusto.

After his speech, Councilman Narvaez moved to recommend the Act to the wider City Council, and Councilman Ridley seconded the motion. With that, Chairman Bazaldua took a vote, and the “ayes” were unanimous. Everyone was for it.

At that moment I felt sick to my stomach. No one had said a single word about the preborn, about what this would mean for babies in the womb. There was no weighing of conflicting rights.

There had been no opportunity for public testimony, so immediately after Chairman Bazaldua adjourned the meeting, I said, “What about the rights of the preborn?” Their response was silence as they began heading for the exit. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the police officer on duty heading my direction, so I spoke up just once more: “What about the babies in the womb?” One of the councilwomen muttered something like, “It’s about healthcare,” but I couldn’t hear exactly what she said. The police officer approached me and said that I was not allowed to address the Councilmen in Chambers at this time.

And that was that. The meeting was done.

For clarification, this does not mean that the Act is adopted by the city yet. It will go to the wider Council, which will need to vote on it again. However, the odds that it passes there are high. There are 14 members of the Dallas City Council. Nine of them were there today, and all of them supported the Act. So even if the other five members oppose, it won’t be enough to keep the Act from going into effect unless some change their minds. At this point, I would be surprised if more than one or two are actually opposed, though I’m admittedly not as familiar with Dallas City politics as I am some other political areas.

Dallas is not the first city to do this. Austin and Denton have already passed such Acts. Apparently San Antonio, Waco, and Ft. Worth are considering the Act, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were many more.

With the reversal of Roe v. Wade, I know many people are excited. Many are celebrating. But I cannot emphasize this enough: Abortion is legal in all 50 states, including Texas. Furthermore, the level of resolve of the pro choice crowd far outweighs the resolve of the pro life crowd.

The pro life movement, at large, is unwilling to treat abortion as murder. They are unwilling to provide Equal Protection under the law for the preborn. This is a fatal error. This is the level of resolve from the other side, as demonstrated by a conversation I had on Twitter today:

“Compromise” is not a bad word, but compromising with evil is always wrong. God’s law is clear that murder is always wrong, and nowhere in scripture are we directed to treat murderers like the “second victims” of murder. Abortion is murder. It must be treated as such. If the pro life movement, the people who are supposedly speaking for the babies in the womb, are unwilling to even advocate for equal protection for those babies, how do they expect to ever win this fight?

War is not won by people who fight to not lose. It is won by people who fight to win.

Will you help me win? Stop messing around, and support Equal Protection for the Preborn in your state, and in our nation. Tell your friends and family. Share it on social media. Talk to your legislators. Talk to them again, and again, and again, until they relent, and support a bill of equal protection. Pray every. single. day. for Repentance, Reformation, and Revival in our land. Fast and pray. Talk to your pastor about all of this.

What do you think the Church in Germany should have been doing during the Holocaust? How “nuanced” should their approach have been? Whatever you think it should have been, if your church isn’t doing that, then do you see the problem?

As I walked out of City Hall back to my car, that sick feeling still in my stomach, I looked back at the building and noticed something interesting that I hadn’t thought of before. The architecture of Dallas City Hall makes it look upside down. The upside down building of City Hall reflects the upside down justice that City Council is delivering to the most innocent among us.

Repent. Repent, or suffer the wrath of God.