Letisha Perry shouts in protest of Pete W. Domenisi’s courthouse in downtown Albuquerque during a Defend Roe rally against Wade organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. Hundreds gathered and took to the streets to protect abortion rights in protest of an expired draft majority opinion suggesting that the Supreme Court intends to overturn Rowe against Wade. (Chancy Bush / Albuquerque Magazine)
Copyright © 2022 Albuquerque Journal
SANTA FE – Less than a year after New Mexico lifted a long-running state ban on abortion, the state could see a fierce new battle on the horizon with the US Supreme Court, reportedly ready to overturn a remarkable decision guaranteeing abortion rights.
Gov. Michel Lujan Grisham, who signed last year’s bill, said she was “outraged and horrified” by news reports citing a draft decision to overturn Rowe v. Wade in 1973.
The potential solution, she said, underscores the importance of 2021 legislation repealing New Mexico’s penal abortion law.
Speaking to reporters, she also warned that new battles are likely.
“If we can just repeal 50 years of constitutional protection,” Lujan Grisham asked, “what’s next? I am very concerned about the published, identified as this draft opinion. “
But Republican state leaders praised the decision, saying it would allow states to pass their own abortion laws.
The news of the draft opinion comes as New Mexico voters prepare to decide the governor’s race and all 70 seats in this year’s U.S. House of Representatives.
“The Supreme Court’s decision is in the best interests of our nation and protects the unborn,” said Steve Pierce, chairman of the Republican State Party. “Judges reaffirmed and acknowledged their duty to protect the lives of the unborn and eliminate the horrors of abortion.
New Mexico lawmakers have repeatedly faced abortion, and this has emerged as a major issue in the 2020 primary, when left-wing candidates ousted some of the state’s most influential senators.
One of the lawmakers who won the election that year – US Senator Xia Korea Hamfill, D-Silver City – was in Washington, DC, on Tuesday to receive an award from the Emily List, a national group that supports Democratic women candidates. that support abortion rights.
The Supreme Court ruling, she said, could boost voters.
“I really feel that this will activate people and motivate people to go out,” she told the Journal.
Hamfill also said lawmakers could consider taking further steps to enshrine reproductive rights in state law, as some other states, such as Colorado, have done.
“I have to move in that direction,” she said.
The draft abortion decision provokes rallies of the NM
The reaction is divided along party lines …
Senator Crystal Diamond, a Republican from Elephant Butte who took office last year, also praised the reported ruling, but said it would do little to change the situation in New Mexico, saying: “even if the opinion and report are legitimate “New Mexico will retain its status as the country’s abortion capital.”
“As such, underage girls can have abortions without warning their parents, and an unborn child can be legally aborted for any reason until birth,” Diamond said. “My heart breaks that women from near and far will come to our beloved country for the sole purpose of terminating their pregnancies.”
NBC News reported that the director of the only abortion clinic in Mississippi is ready to move to New Mexico if the court eventually cancels Rowe against Wade. Director Shannon Brewer said she was making plans to ensure she could continue to provide access to abortion if her Jackson clinic was forced to close or cut services, the NBC report said.
After taking office in 2019, Lucan Grisham called for the repeal of the 1969 state law criminalizing abortion.
Although legislation seeking to do so failed in 2019, it was approved last year after several moderate Senate Democrats were ousted in the 2020 primary.
Proponents of last year’s bill called for abortion rights to be guaranteed in the event the U.S. Supreme Court reconsidered its Rowe v. Wade ruling.
The repealed state law had made it a crime to terminate a woman’s pregnancy, except in certain circumstances, such as rape. But this was largely inapplicable due to the federal court ruling.
The Republican Party has said that Rowe’s decision has always been legally wrong.
“Abortion is wrong for moral reasons,” Pierce said.
Lucan Grisham said the potential solution would “increase” the political importance of protecting abortion rights at the state level.
“This means that half the country, including New Mexico, will respect women’s right to choose,” she said, “and we will have to fight for that.”
Add Comment