SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s governor signed an abortion rights bill Thursday that addresses local ordinances aimed at limiting access to abortion procedures and medications.
Reproductive health clinics in New Mexico offer abortion procedures to patients from states, including Texas, with strict abortion bans. The new law also aims to ensure access to gender-affirming health care related to the distress of a gender identity that does not match the assigned sex.
New Mexico has one of the most liberal abortion access laws in the country, but two counties and three cities in eastern New Mexico recently enacted abortion bans that reflect deep opposition to offering the procedure.
A bill signed by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham addresses these local ordinances.
Additional bills working their way through the New Mexico Legislature would protect abortion providers and patients from interference, prosecution or extradition attempts outside the state.
In 2021, New Mexico’s Democrat-led Legislature passed a measure to repeal an inactive 1969 statute that banned abortion procedures, which guaranteed access to abortion after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.
The anti-abortion ordinance — adopted in recent months by officials in the cities of Hobbs, Clovis and Eunice, along with Lea and Roosevelt counties — refers to a vague U.S. anti-obscenity law that prohibits the delivery of drugs or other substances intended to help abortion. .
Separately, the Attorney General of the Democratic state Raúl Torrez has urged the Supreme Court of the state to intervene against local abortion laws that he says violates the state’s constitutional guarantee of equal protection and due process.
Democratic governors in 20 states this year launched a network intended to strengthen abortion access following a US Supreme Court ruling that violated a woman’s constitutional right to end a pregnancy. The decision shifts regulatory powers over the procedure to state governments.
Many countries are also enacting or considering restrictions or outright bans on transgender medical care, with conservative US lawmakers saying they are worried young people will regret the treatment they can’t afford.