New Mexico supreme court strikes down local abortion pill restrictions
The New Mexico supreme court late on Thursday ruled against several local ordinances in the state that aim to restrict distribution of the abortion pill.
In a unanimous opinion, the court said the ordinances invaded the legislature?s authority to regulate reproductive care.
?Our legislature granted to counties and municipalities all powers and duties not inconsistent with the laws of New Mexico. The ordinances violate this core precept and invade the legislature?s authority to regulate access to and provision of reproductive healthcare,? the court wrote in its opinion by the justice Shannon Bacon.
It declined to address whether the ordinances violated the state?s constitutional protections.
Abortion is legal in New Mexico, which has become a destination for women seeking abortions from Texas, especially, and other states that have banned the procedure following the US supreme court ruling in 2022 ending a woman?s constitutional right to abortion and handing powers over the issue to individual states.
Following that ruling, leaders of New Mexico?s Roosevelt and Lea counties and the towns of Clovis and Hobbs, all on the Texas border, passed ordinances seeking to stop abortion clinics from receiving or sending mifepristone, a pill taken with another drug to perform a medication abortion, and other abortion-related materials in the mail. Medication abortions account for more than half of all US abortions. Last June the supreme court upheld access to the drugs.
The ordinances invoked the federal Comstock Act, a 19th-century ?anti-vice? law against mailing abortifacients, which are drugs that induce abortion, and said that clinics must comply with the law.
Under Roosevelt county?s ordinance, any person other than a government employee could bring a civil lawsuit and seek damages of at least $100,000 for each violation of the Comstock Act.
The New Mexico supreme court admonished this, saying that creating a private right of action and damages award was ?clearly intended to punish protected conduct?.
The state attorney general, Ra?l Torrez, praised the court?s ruling on Thursday, saying that the core of the argument was that state laws preempted any action by local governments to engage in activities that would infringe on the constitutional rights of citizens.
?The bottom line is simply this: abortion access is safe and secure in New Mexico,? he said. ?It?s enshrined in law by the recent ruling by the New Mexico supreme court and thanks to the work of the New Mexico legislature.?
The New Mexico house speaker, Javier Mart?nez, called access to healthcare a basic fundamental right in New Mexico.
?It doesn?t take a genius to understand the statutory framework that we have. Local governments don?t regulate healthcare in New Mexico. It is up to the state,? the Albuquerque Democrat said.
Opposition to abortion runs deep in New Mexico communities along the border with Texas, however, which has one of the most restrictive bans in the US.
But Democrats, who control every statewide elected office in New Mexico and hold majorities in the state house and senate, have moved to shore up access to the service.
In 2021, the New Mexico Legislature repealed a dormant 1969 statute that outlawed most abortion procedures as felonies, ensuring access to abortion even after the Roe v Wade reversal.
And in 2023, the Democratic New Mexico governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, signed a bill that overrides local ordinances aimed at limiting abortion access and enacted a shield law that protects abortion providers from investigations by other states.
In September, construction began on a state-funded reproductive health and abortion clinic in southern New Mexico that will cater to local residents and people who travel from neighboring states.
The new clinic should open in 2026 to provide services ranging from medical and procedural abortions to contraception, cervical cancer screenings and education about adoptions.
It was not immediately clear whether the ruling can be appealed in federal court. The New Mexico supreme court opinion explicitly declined to address conflicts with federal law, basing its decision solely on state provisions.
The Texas-based attorney Jonathan Mitchell, a former Texas solicitor general and architect of that state?s strict abortion ban, said he looked forward ?to litigating these issues in other states and bringing the meaning of the federal Comstock Act to the supreme court of the United States?.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting
