Midland County declares itself sanctuary county for the unborn

MIDLAND, Texas (KOSA) -The Midland County Commissioners Court voted 4-1 in favor of establishing Midland County as a sanctuary city to “protect life from conception to natural death.”

Many Midlanders, both for and against, spoke at the meeting, which was the first item on the agenda.

“To me, it did not have a place on the Midland County agenda,” said Precinct 1 Commissioner Scott Ramsey.

This isn’t the first time the idea of declaring Midland County to be a sanctuary county has been brought up. Midland Judge Terry Johnson openly considered making Midland County a sanctuary county in 2020.

“I brought this up in court a couple of years ago,” Johnson said. “I didn’t get much support. I didn’t get much support on a lot of things a couple of years ago but it seemed like now the appetite was there, and so it was time to do this.

Ramsey was the only vote against it.

“Why don’t we leave this up to the elected officials at the state and federal governments that do have the powers to do something to fix this issue? Ramsey asked. “We have nothing. We can’t do anything so I just didn’t think it had a place here.”

Johnson hopes the declaration starts more discussion on similar topics.

“To those that are for it, I applaud today was a great day, and for those that are against it, I hope that we can continue having a dialogue about this issue and hopefully come to some resolution on the issue,” Johnson said.

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