The Austin, Texas, city council this week passed a measure giving $150,000 of taxpayer money to fund abortions.

On Tuesday, the council announced a budget package allocating the cash to the city’s Public Health Department, which in turn will distribute the money to groups helping poor women secure abortions.

“Pro-choice” Austin City Councilman Greg Casar praised the bill for increasing “access to abortion,” a move that will invariably lead to the death of unborn babies.

“Every day the anti-abortion elements in Texas, in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, wake up and think, ‘How can we restrict access to abortion today,’” Casar told NBC. “That makes it our job, every day, to work to expand access to abortion and health care and other basic services related to abortion.”

Texas pro-life groups, however, lamented the fact the city passes resolutions to protect the environment and not the unborn.

“It is appalling the city of Austin doubled-down on its policies to ‘save the trees, kill the children,’” said Nicole Hudgins with the pro-life group Texas Values. “This budget amendment is a political stunt attempting to circumvent the law. If the city really wants to help women, they should lower their taxes and stop killing innocent children.”

LifeNews.com’s Micaiah Bilger notes Texas Gov. Greg Abbott passed a resolution this year preventing local governments from funding organizations which perform abortions, however, the city’s new measure appears to be an attempt to skirt that law by instead giving the money to groups that assist women in obtaining abortions.

Bilger writes the money could in effect fund late-term abortions by paying for women to travel to states where the practice is legal.

Pro-life group Texas Right to Life labeled the council’s measure “grotesque news.”

“This grotesque news is another example of the abortion industry exploiting taxpayers to profit off vulnerable women and kill preborn children,” they wrote.

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