New Mexico
Latest SCOTUS abortion case uncertain and could impact New Mexico – NM Political Report
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday on an abortion-related case, this time over whether an Idaho anti-abortion law preempts a federal law that requires hospitals to stabilize a patient in a medical emergency if that involves abortion. Idaho’s abortion ban only allows abortion in the event the patient is facing death. There […]
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday on an abortion-related case, this time over whether an Idaho anti-abortion law preempts a federal law that requires hospitals to stabilize a patient in a medical emergency if that involves abortion.
Idaho’s abortion ban only allows abortion in the event the patient is facing death. There is no exception to save the health of the pregnant person. In the few months since this law has been in effect in Idaho, one Idaho hospital system reported having to airlift pregnant patients to out-of-state hospitals for care about once every other week, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the Supreme Court during oral argument.
The case, Idaho v. United States, is the second time the U.S. Supreme Court has heard oral arguments in a case involving abortion this term. The previous case was over the availability of mifepristone, the first of a two-step abortion regimen. Justices are expected to rule on both cases in late June or early July.
The Idaho case has repercussions for states such as New Mexico in various ways. One is that if a majority of Supreme Court justices side with Idaho, it will increase more abortion patient referrals to states where abortion is still legal and safe, such as New Mexico. This comes at the same time that Arizona’s 1864 abortion ban is set to go into effect on June 8, though the Arizona House narrowly passed a repeal of that law on Wednesday, which would still leave a 15-week abortion ban in place.
How the AZ Supreme Court decision on abortion impacts New Mexico
Advocates argue that another repercussion is that if the Supreme Court sides with Idaho, it could open the door to allowing any state to ban any type of emergency room care, such as providing stabilizing care in emergency rooms for patients with HIV/AIDS.
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act was enacted in 1986, under the Reagan administration, to prevent “patient dumping” on other hospitals. It requires that all hospitals that receive Medicare funding must stabilize a patient, regardless of ability to pay or insurance status, if the patient is suffering a medical emergency. Idaho and six other states have anti-abortion laws so severe, they conflict with that federal law.
Another concern for New Mexico is that the state of Texas sued the U.S. government over EMTALA in 2022. That case was not a part of the Supreme Court’s oral argument on Wednesday but it leads to the question of whether Texas could refuse emergency room care to stabilize a patient if that care means providing an abortion if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Idaho.
In a national press conference, Meghan Daniel, who heads a Chicago-based abortion fund provider, said during the call with reporters that if emergency care is no longer available, the cost of lifelighting pregnant patients to another state would cost tens of thousands of dollars, in addition to the other medical bills.
“The roll back of EMTALA could push our support to the breaking point for life flights alone – $12,000 to $25,000 per flight to risk health and life would undue abortion funds,” Daniel said.
Joan Lamunyon Sanford, executive director of the New Mexico-based abortion fund provider Faith Roots Reproductive Action, said another concern could be for individuals who live in New Mexico but who live so close to the state line that the nearest hospital could be in Lubbock or Odessa or Midlands. In addition, much of southern New Mexico is served by El Paso’s higher critical care hospitals.
“I think that’s a very accurate analysis,” Lamunyon Sanford said of Daniel’s statement. She said that in the event that Texas upends EMTALA in Texas, pregnant individuals who live in New Mexico could travel to a Texas-based hospital for a medical emergency only to find themselves airlifted back into New Mexico for emergency abortion care.
“These kinds of bans of any kind of care put a strain on medical infrastructure,” Lamunyon Sanford said.
Lamunyon Sanford said FRRA has not yet considered the implications for their abortion fund, which supports individuals traveling to New Mexico from out-of-state for an abortion but she expressed frustration over the situation.
“It’s just so profoundly disappointing that women’s lives and people with the capacity for pregnancy would be so expendable. By people who claim to uphold family values,” she said.
The female justices, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, asked hard questions to the Idaho lawyer representing that state. But even if Coney Barrett sides with the more liberal wing of the court, the liberal faction will need at least one more vote and which direction Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Brett Kavanaugh were leaning was not immediately clear during oral arguments. Justice Samuel Alito worried many because he questioned the fact that the phrase “unborn child” appears in EMTALA. This has raised concerns that he was signaling interest in the notion of “fetal personhood.” Unlike the mifepristone case the Supreme Court heard last month, the oral argument for this case ended without a likely outcome.
U.S. Supreme Court hears case to restrict access to medication abortion
Katie O’Connor, director of federal abortion policy for National Women’s Law Center, said during the national press call that the worry that around Alito’s invoking the term “fetal personhood” “gets to the issue at the heart of this case.” Alito asked questions to invoke debate about there being “two people” whose lives are at stake in medical emergencies that involve a pregnant person.
“To single out pregnant people and pregnant people alone as the only group not entitled to receive emergency medical treatment…puts on display with Alito’s distorted phrase “the unborn child” in statute to mean something it clearly does not…gets to the heart of this case and what Idaho is trying to do,” O’Connor said.
After years of failure to land a “big fish” business for New Mexico’s economy (or effectively use the oil and gas revenues to grow the economy) Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham with the help of her Economic Development Secretary Rob Black have lured no fewer than three large data centers to New Mexico. These data centers are being built to serve the booming world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and they will have profound impacts on New Mexico.
It is our view that having these data centers locate in New Mexico is better than having them locate elsewhere. While we have many differences of opinion with this governor, we are pleased to see her get serious about growing and diversifying New Mexico’s oil-dependent economy albeit quite late in her second term.
Sadly, the governor and legislature have chosen not to use broad based economic reforms like deregulation or tax cuts to improve New Mexico’s competitiveness. But, with the failure of her “preferred” economic development “wins” like Maxeon and Ebon solar both of which the governor announced a few years ago, but haven’t panned out, the focus on a more realistic strategy is welcome and long overdue.
Currently, three new data centers are slated to be built in New Mexico:
- Oracle’s Project Jupiter in Santa Teresa with an investment of $165 billion.
- Project Zenith slated to be built in Roswell amounts to a $11.7 billion investment.
- New Era Energy & Digital, Inc. While the overall investment is unclear, the energy requirement is the largest of the three at 7 gigawatts (that’s seven times the power used by the City of San Francisco).
What is a data center? Basically, they are the real-world computing infrastructure that makes up the Internet. The rise of AI requires vast new computing power. It is critical that these facilities have uninterrupted electricity.
That electricity is going to be largely generated by traditional sources like natural gas and possibly nuclear. That contravenes New Mexico’s Energy Transition Act of 2019 which was adopted by this Gov. and many of the legislators still in office. Under the Act electrical power emissions are supposed to be eliminated in a few years.
With the amount of money being invested in these facilities and the simple fact that wind and solar and other “renewable” energy sources aren’t going to get the job done. In 2025 the Legislature passed and MLG signed HB 93 which allows for the creation of “microgrids” that won’t tax the grid and make our electricity more expensive, but the ETA will have to be amended or ignored to provide enough electricity for these data centers. There’s no other option.
New Mexicans have every right to wonder why powerful friends of the governor can set up their own natural gas microgrids while the rest of us face rising costs and decreased reliability from so-called “renewables.” Don’t get me wrong, having these data centers come to New Mexico is an economic boon.
But it comes tempered with massive subsidies including a 30-year property tax exemption and up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds. New Mexico is ideally suited as a destination for these data centers with its favorable climate and lack of natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. We shouldn’t be giving away such massive subsidies.
Welcoming the data center boom to New Mexico better than rejecting them and pushing them to locate in other states. There is no way to avoid CO2 emissions whether they happen here or somewhere else. But, there are questions about both the electricity demand and subsidies that must be addressed as New Mexico’s data center boom begins.
What will the Legislature, radical environmental groups, and future governors of our state do to hinder (or help) bring these data centers to our State? That is an open question that depends heavily on upcoming statewide elections. It is important that New Mexicans understand and appreciate these complicated issues.
Paul Gessing is president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation. The Rio Grande Foundation is an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility
SANTA FE, N.M. (KFOX14/CBS4) – The New Mexico Department of Health says it will continue to recommend the full schedule of childhood vaccines.
State officials announced the move Tuesday, directly defying a new federal policy that scaled back routine immunization guidance.
The announcement comes after U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS), under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., reduced the number of vaccines it recommends for all children.
The New Mexico Department of Health stated the federal changes were “not based on new scientific evidence or safety data.”
“New Mexico will not follow the federal government in walking away from decades of proven public health practice,” said Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. “Our recommendations remain unchanged.”
State health officials sought to reassure parents, emphasizing that vaccines remain widely available and covered by insurance.
“We know this is confusing for parents, but the science is clear: vaccines are safe, effective, and save children’s lives,” said Dr. Miranda Durham, chief medical officer for NMDOH.
All childhood vaccinations will continue to be covered under programs like Medicaid and the federal Vaccines for Children Program.
The state encourages parents to consult their healthcare providers using the American Academy of Pediatrics’ immunization schedule.
RECOMMENDED: CDC cuts childhood vaccine list, sparking healthcare professionals’ concerns
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