Man Who Helped 91 American Cities Pass Abortion Bans Wins Pro-Life Award

Operation Rescue is pleased to announce that the recipient of the 2025 Person of the Year Malachi Award is Mark Lee Dickson, founder of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative and a stalwart anti-abortion activist who has helped shape the pro-life landscape not only in his home state of Texas, but the rest of the nation as well.

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In June of 2019, Dickson and Texas attorney Jonathan Mitchell spearheaded their first initiative to outlaw abortion by ordinance in the city of Waskom, Texas. With a unanimous vote, the Waskom city council banned abortion within the city limits, creating a legal protection for preborn children in the womb through all nine months of pregnancy. This was before Texas as a state banned abortion and before Roe was overturned. With that unanimous vote, Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn came into existence.

Since then, Dickson has worked with city councils, local pro-life groups, and concerned citizens across the United States to establish enforceable ordinances outlawing abortion in 91 cities and 16 counties.

Twenty-one of those 91 cities were added in 2025, alone, along with eight of the 16 counties.

And, while the majority of these ordinances are in Texas, others have been established in states where abortion is still legal. The most incredible example is four cities and two counties located in radically pro-abortion New Mexico, a state with no gestational limits and home to one of the largest late-term abortion clinics in America. Even in a radicalized abortion state like this, Dickson has strategically succeeded in creating a strong refuge for preborn children, preventing any expansion by surrounding predatory abortion businesses into otherwise unprotected spaces.

Other states with successful initiatives include: Nebraska, Ohio, Louisiana, Illinois, and Iowa.

Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, states, “I am honored to endorse Mark Lee Dickson for Operation Rescue’s Malachi Person of the Year Award. Like the prophet Malachi, Mark has demonstrated rare courage to confront injustice, speak truth plainly, and call civil authorities to their God-ordained duty to protect innocent life.

“Through principled leadership and relentless effort, he has helped more than 90 cities across America pass abortion abolition ordinances, taking concrete action to end abortion at the local level. Mark is not interested in symbolic gestures or incrementalism. He is committed to justice. His work has emboldened communities, challenged complacency, and proven that faithful action can change the course of history. For his courage, conviction, and faithfulness to the unborn, Mark Lee Dickson richly deserves the Malachi Award.”

Previous to the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn Initiative, Dickson also served as a director for Right to Life East Texas for 19 years. His dedicated work to “outlaw abortion, one city at a time” has made him a target for abortion radicals, including three abortion funds that sued Dickson for “defamation” shortly after the Waskom Initiative passed. Afiya Center, Texas Equal Access Fund and Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity took issue with Dickson rightly referring to them as “criminal organizations” in social media posts.

According to his biography, “Dickson was also the only non-government actor named as a defendant in the federal lawsuit regarding the Texas Heartbeat Act, which was heard before the Supreme Court of the United States.”

All of these cases against Dickson were eventually dismissed.

“Operation Rescue knows all too well that successful pro-life activism often earns you a load of lawsuits from the abortion cartel” adds Newman. “Dickson has stood against numerous attacks with integrity, truth, and most of all, compassion and deep empathy for his preborn brothers and sisters in the womb. As it says in the Gospel of John, ‘There is no greater love than this—that a man should lay down his life for his friends.’ Dickson has proven to be a true friend to the preborn, and we commend his strategic work in dismantling the abortion cartel and building a definable culture of Life, one city at a time.”

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