Will abortion resolution draw speakers?

City Council Member Leslie Pool is the lead sponsor on a resolution that supports safe and affordable access to legal abortions and commemorates the 44th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Without saying whether she supports the symbolic resolution, Council Member Ellen Troxclair asked fellow Council members to decide at Tuesday’s work session whether they wanted to limit public testimony on the resolution, as they often do. Pool said she was not expecting a lot of people to show up on either side. In response to a question from Council Member Greg Casar, Troxclair said although she had no specific information on who might show up, “any other time that we’ve talked about abortion at this Council, we’ve had a prolonged conversation.” That might especially be true because Travis County previously postponed considering a similar resolution at the request of Commissioner Gerald Daugherty. Pool did not want to set a specific time limit on Tuesday but finally agreed that debate should be limited. Council Member Delia Garza said anyone who comes to speak on the matter should be given some amount of time. Mayor Steve Adler concluded, “We’re going to limit debate,” but he wanted to leave the specific limits until Council could see how many people show up for the item on Thursday.