The Thomas More Society has filed a lawsuit against the City of Fort Worth, Mayor Betsy Price, and two abortion vendors, seeking an immediate injunction to prevent abortion providers from consuming the personal protective equipment that is in short supply and desperately needed by the medical personnel on the front lines fighting the ravages of COVID-19 and the spread of the deadly disease.

The complaint charges that Price and the City of Fort Worth are violating Texas law by suspending non-emergency surgeries and procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic while allowing elective abortions to continue. Mayor Price’s April 7, 2020, stay-at-home order prohibits all elective medical, surgical, and dental procedures within city limits. Meanwhile, abortion clinics in Fort Worth have been continuing to perform drug-induced abortions despite this city-wide ban. The lawsuit asks the Court to enjoin the city from enforcing its stay-at-home order until it is amended or clarified to disallow abortions “on the same terms that it prohibits other elective surgeries and procedures.”

The lawsuit accuses the city’s abortion providers of: “...selfishly consuming personal protective equipment on elective and unlawful abortions, at a time when every piece of personal protective equipment must be conserved, to the maximum possible extent, for workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and others who are providing life-saving or essential medical treatments.” It also alleges that medical professionals who need personal protective equipment for treating COVID-19 patents “will suffer probable, imminent, and irreparable injury absent a temporary injunction,” because the defendant abortion clinics are squandering scarce personal protective equipment on elective procedures.

The complaint also notes that Texas has never repealed its pre-Roe v. Wade statutes that criminalize abortion unless the mother’s life is in danger, and it asks the Court to declare that these statutes still exist as the law of Texas even though the federal judiciary is currently unwilling to enforce them on account of Roe v. Wade.

Tom Brejcha, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Society, explained: “The City of Fort Worth cannot order a suspension of all ‘elective’ surgeries and procedures and then carve out special dispensations for abortion providers."

Brejcha said: "If the city is halting elective procedures to preserve personal protective equipment for the COVID-19 pandemic, then elective abortions must be stopped as well. That is especially true when the law of Texas continues to define abortion as a criminal offense unless the mother’s life is in danger.”

Read the Thomas More Society’s complaint filed on behalf of Gregory B. Scheideman, William F. Runyon Jr., David W. Kostohryz Jr., John Kelley, Fort Worth Oral Surgery PA, Kelley Orthodontics, and the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, filed April 17, 2020, with the Tarrant County, Texas, District Court in Scheideman, et al. v. City of Fort Worth et al., here.