SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s governor signed an abortion-rights invoice Thursday that overrides native ordinances geared toward limiting entry to abortion procedures and drugs.
Reproductive well being clinics in New Mexico supply abortion procedures to sufferers from states, together with Texas, with strict abortion bans. The brand new legislation additionally goals to make sure entry to gender affirming healthcare associated to misery over gender identification that doesn’t match an individual’s assigned intercourse.
New Mexico has one of many nation’s most liberal abortion entry legal guidelines, however two counties and three cities in jap New Mexico have just lately adopted abortion restrictions that mirror deep-seated opposition to providing the process.
The invoice signed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham overrides these native ordinances.
A further invoice working its manner by New Mexico’s Legislature would defend abortion suppliers and sufferers from out-of-state interference, prosecution or extradition makes an attempt.
In 2021, New Mexico’s Democrat-led Legislature handed a measure to repeal a dormant 1969 statute that outlawed most abortion procedures, which ensured entry to abortion after the U.S. Supreme Courtroom overturned Roe v. Wade final 12 months.
Anti-abortion ordinances — adopted over the previous a number of months by officers within the cities of Hobbs, Clovis and Eunice, together with Lea and Roosevelt counties — reference an obscure U.S. anti-obscenity legislation that prohibits delivery of treatment or different supplies meant to help abortions.
Individually, Democratic state Legal professional Normal Raúl Torrez has urged the state Supreme Courtroom to intervene towards native abortion ordinances that he says violate state constitutional ensures of equal safety and due course of.
Democratic governors in 20 states this 12 months launched a community meant to strengthen abortion entry within the wake of the U.S. Supreme Courtroom determination nixing a girl’s constitutional proper to finish a being pregnant. The choice shifted regulatory powers over the process to state governments.
Many states have additionally enacted or contemplated limits or outright bans on transgender medical remedy, with conservative U.S. lawmakers saying they’re apprehensive about younger individuals later regretting irreversible body-altering remedy.