Amarillo City Councilmember for Place 3 Tom Scherlen held another public meeting last week to have citizens voice their concerns about issues that affect the city. Much like the last meeting, they discussed a proposed abortion ordinance for the city. This meeting had more citizens arguing to impose the ordinance than the previous meeting, which featured primarily pro-choice citizens.
The meeting started off with a tense exchange between Scherlen and John Barrett, one of the 11 initialing committee members for the abortion ordinance petition that was filed in December. At the heart of the discussion were comments made by Scherlen in previous interviews about the lack of need for the ordinance due to abortion law in Texas.
In an online interview, Barrett blasted Scherlen for spreading misinformation about the ordinance. The heart of the issue was what the ordinance does that the state law does not do. Barrett took issue with Scherlen questioning the constitutionality of the ordinance on CNN. He said the Texas Heartbeat Act does not properly address abortion travel outside of the state and abortion-inducing drugs. He alleges that Texas law encouraged communities to go beyond the state law.