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The city of San Antonio is facing a lawsuit after budgeting $500,000 to support reproductive health services, including, potentially, transportation and lodging for people seeking abortions outside Texas.
A group of anti-abortion organizations filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Bexar County, asking a state district judge to prohibit taxpayer dollars from going to organizations that help Texans travel out of the state for abortion.
Last month, City Council members approved a $3.7 billion budget, San Antonio’s largest, which included half a million dollars to establish a “reproductive justice fund.” The city has not yet said how that money will be spent; during City Council hearings, advocates talked mostly about using it to support health education, access to emergency contraception and testing for sexually transmitted diseases.
But some City Council members said they would like to see the money used to support nonprofit groups that help Texans travel to other states to get abortions.
“We need to discuss the opportunities we have to make an impact legally,” council member Jalen McKee-Rodriguez told television station KSAT in September. “As far as we can go, I want to go there, of course, within the confines of state law.”
The lawsuit claims that providing taxpayer dollars to these organizations violates the law, even if the funds aren’t used to directly...
Irene Oshiyoye, former CEO of a Farmington, Mich.-based physician group, agreed to pay $250,000 to settle allegations of defrauding Medicare and Medicaid, according to a Sept. 12 news release from ...