In April, Mark Lee Dickson arrived in this 4,500-person city that hugs the Utah-Nevada border to pitch an ordinance banning abortion.
Dickson is the director of the anti-abortion group Right to Life of East Texas and founder of another organization that has spent the last few years traveling the United States trying to convince local governments to pass abortion bans.
“Sixty-five cities and two counties across the United States” have passed similar restrictions, he told members of the West Wendover City Council during a mid-April meeting. The majority are in Texas, but recent successes in other states have buoyed Dickson and his group.
“We’re doing this in Virginia and Illinois and Montana and other places as well,” he said.
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Residents and leaders in West Wendover and many other towns and cities are grappling with the arrival of outside advocates, including Dickson, who now claim a stake in the governance of their small and otherwise quiet communities.
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