New Mexico Asks Court to Overturn Cities’ Abortion Bans
TAOS, N.M. (Reuters) – New Mexico’s high prosecutor on Monday requested the state’s highest court docket to overturn abortion bans imposed by conservative native governments within the Democratic-run state the place the process stays authorized after Roe v. Wade was struck down.
The transfer comes after the New Mexico cities of Hobbs, Clovis and two surrounding counties bordering Texas handed ordinances in latest months to limit abortion clinics and entry to abortion capsules.
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez filed a unprecedented writ in New Mexico Supreme Court to dam the ordinances which he mentioned have been based mostly on flawed interpretations of nineteenth century federal laws on abortion medicine.
“This shouldn’t be Texas. Our State Constitution doesn’t permit cities, counties or personal residents to limit ladies’s reproductive rights,” Torrez mentioned in a press release.
Right-to-life activists mentioned the laws remained legitimate beneath federal regulation and vowed to work on bringing such ordinances to extra cities in New Mexico, the one state bordering Texas the place abortion stays authorized.
New Mexico’s largest cities of Las Cruces and Albuquerque have develop into regional locations for ladies looking for abortions because the U.S. Supreme Court in June ended the nationwide constitutional proper to the process.
Located on New Mexico’s japanese plains, Clovis and Hobbs don’t have abortion clinics however permitted ordinances to cease suppliers finding there to serve sufferers from Republican-controlled Texas, one of many first states to impose a near-total ban on abortion.
In direct response, New Mexico Democrats have drafted laws to forestall cities from overriding state legal guidelines guaranteeing womens’ rights to reproductive healthcare. The laws is because of be debated this month and has a robust probability of passing the Democratic-controlled state legislature.
The small neighborhood of Eunice on Monday turned the third New Mexico city to go an ordinance, in accordance with anti-abortion activist Mark Lee Dickson.
“Cities and counties throughout the state stay on good standing to go ordinances,” mentioned Dickson, director of Right To Life East Texas, including that the laws had by no means been repealed by the U.S. Congress or declared invalid by the U.S. Supreme Court.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Additional reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
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