Targeting Austin's $1-a-year lease with a Planned Parenthood health center, a Texas Senate committee on Monday approved a bill to ban cities and counties from doing any type of business with an abortion provider or affiliated organizations.

Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, said that while the Legislature prohibited the use of almost all state money for Planned Parenthood in 2011, her bill would crack down on local governments that continue to spend tax money on groups that promote or conduct abortions.

"Taxpayers who oppose abortion shouldn't have to see their tax dollars subsidizing the industry," Campbell told the Senate State Affairs Committee.

Senate Bill 22, co-authored by all 20 Republican senators, was approved 7-0 by the committee and next goes to the full Senate for consideration.

The measure — the first abortion-related bill acted upon this session — would ban any "taxpayer resource transaction" between any government in Texas and an abortion provider or an affiliated organization.

The bill also would give the state attorney general the power to file a lawsuit seeking an injunction to block such transactions.

Opponents said the bill would impose a state-issued mandate on local leaders who have a far better understanding of an area's needs.

"This is a bill that seeks to interfere with a local community's decision to make what it believes are the best health care decisions for the people who live in their local communities," said Wendy Davis, a former Democratic senator who is now executive director of Deeds Not Words.

Cutting out Planned Parenthood would deprive women of services — including contraceptives, cancer screening and other well-woman care — that "many don't have alternatives to seek," Davis said.

Austin lease

About 30 people waited nine hours to testify on SB 22 while the committee handled other bills, with the vast majority in favor of Campbell's legislation.

Elizabeth Graham with Texas Right to Life praised lawmakers for banning the use of taxpayer money for abortion providers in previous sessions but said more work remains to be done.

"Cities and counties are thumbing their noses at the work you have done," Graham said.

Under SB 22, examples of banned transactions include sales and purchases, leases and donations of money, goods and services. The bill also would prohibit local governments from "advocacy or lobbying on behalf of the interests of an abortion provider or affiliate."

The bill would not apply to hospitals, residency programs or a doctor's office where fewer than 50 abortions a year are performed.

Many of the bill's supporters criticized Austin's decision to rent a city-owned building at East Seventh and Chicon streets to Planned Parenthood for $1 a year.

The city first agreed to lease the building in 1973, and the City Council renewed the lease unanimously in 2010 and by a 10-1 vote last November, according to the organization.

The clinic provided care that included testing for sexually transmitted infections and HIV, birth control and cancer screenings to 5,153 patients, most of whom were low income, in 2018, according to Planned Parenthood, which said the subsidized health care was worth about $560,000.

In addition, Planned Parenthood said it plans a $1.4 million renovation of the Seventh Street building in the coming year, with the money raised from private donations.

Abortions are not performed at the clinic, but supporters of SB 22 argued that any money sent to Planned Parenthood for health care would benefit the organization's abortion-related services.

"Our tax dollars are meant to help people, not kill them," said Kori Peterson, the East Texas director of Concerned Women for America.

A similar ban passed the Senate in the 2017 special session, only to be blocked in the House State Affairs Committee, which has a new chairman — Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont — this session.

Other abortion bills

The transaction ban was one of three abortion-related bills that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, designated as priorities by including them in the first 30 bill numbers reserved for his leading issues:

• SB 23 by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, would require medical treatment for children born alive after an abortion and will get a committee hearing Tuesday. Supporters say the bill was inspired by recent debates over late-term abortions in New York and Virginia, while abortion rights advocates say the measure addresses a nonexistent problem and would worsen the hostile environment for abortion doctors in Texas.

• SB 24 by Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, would make technical legal changes to ensure that abortion clinics distribute state-printed information, including lists of adoption agencies and anti-abortion pregnancy centers and data on the anatomical features of fetuses, to women before an abortion.