In a move that eerily echoed the exclusively white, male group of Republican politicians who passed an almost blanket ban on abortion in Alabama last month, the white, all-male city council of Waskom voted unanimously to pass the measure, declaring itself the state’s first “sanctuary city for the unborn.”

The Waskom measure, which calls abortion providers “criminal organisations”, and laws that permit abortion “unconstitutional usurpations of judicial power … and are null and void in the City of Waskom,” was widely celebrated by the community and anti-choice activists who wanted to prevent a clinic being opened within the city’s limits.

Like so many of the abortion restrictions that have swept across the US this year, councillors have passed the city ordinance in the hope that it might challenge the landmark 1973 Roe vs Wade ruling in the Supreme Court, which which defends a woman’s right to an abortion.

Texas abortion ban: All-male council just unanimously voted to ban abortions