Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn and the Spatial Strategy of Social Control in Texas

In 2019, anti-abortion activists started the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn (SCFTU) initiative, aiming to pass local ordinances outlawing abortion within city or county limits across Texas. In this article, I examine the SCFTU initiative in Texas to explain the role of social control in anti-abortion strategy and the broader implications of this type of activism in relation to mainstream pro-life and the more extreme abortion abolitionist aims. To understand these mechanisms of social control, I employ a framework drawn from literature on social control and abortion mobilities. The article argues that the SCFTU initiative offers a space for anti-abortion activists to build power at a local level and to develop new ways to undermine and criminalize reproductive rights. The most serious implication of the strategy is that this type of activism clearly recognizes that abortion bans are difficult to enforce, signaling a turn toward a more authoritarian frameworks such as the model introduced by abortion abolitionists.