The City of San Francisco has added 22 states with pro-life laws to a blacklist that prevents city employees from traveling to those states using city funds or dealing with businesses based in them.
City Administrator Naomi Kelly issued a memo to department heads and other high-level staffers Tuesday indicating the states had been placed on the city’s blacklist.The move followed the passage of legislation introduced by Supervisor Vallie Brown this summer that curbs city-funded travel to states that restrict abortion before the viability of the fetus to live outside the womb, which include so-called “fetal heartbeat” laws. The city will also be prohibited from inking new contracts with businesses headquartered in those states.
The 22 “deplorable” states are: Alabama Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
The rationale behind the move is astonishing.
“States that are having these horrific bans, I’d like to see them hurt financially,” [San Francisco City Supervisor Vallie] Brown says. “That is a universal language of economic health. If they’re going to put women in a situation that could hurt their economic health — like having children when they’re not ready — then we should hurt their economic health as a state.
The move is being condemned by politicians in Nebraska.
Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse (R) called questioned the wisdom of the blacklist.
“Progressive cancel culture is dumb,” Sasse said in a statement. “Most Nebraskans, like a whole bunch of Californians, are pro-life and want to reflect our pro-science, pro-woman, pro-baby beliefs with common-sense laws. Folks in San Francisco are free to disagree, but it’s childish to try to shut down a big cultural debate.”…Sasse said that, unlike the San Francisco government, pro-life individuals are willing to listen to people with opposing views.”Pro-lifers aren’t out to silence the other side — we believe in persuasion,” he said. “San Francisco progressives can throw a tantrum — Nebraskans will continue to act like grownups.”
Nebraska’s governor also essentially deemed this inane directive divisive.
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts responded, “Nebraska is a proudly pro-life state, and this demonstrates shocking intolerance by coastal elites that is divisive to our nation.”
I will simply point out that, despite the feces-ridden streets teeming with discarded syringes and homeless encampments, San Francisco also enjoys a fairly healthy tourist trade. How many more travel bans will the city issue before the “deplorable states” create their own travel and trade blacklists?
Featured image: San Francisco Civic Center BART Station drug users via YouTube.
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