New Mexico asks court to overturn cities’ abortion bans

TAOS, N.M., Jan 23 (Reuters) – New Mexico’s prime 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 current months to limit abortion clinics and entry to abortion drugs.

New Mexico Legal professional Common Raul Torrez filed a rare writ in New Mexico Supreme Court docket to dam the ordinances which he mentioned had been primarily based on flawed interpretations of nineteenth century federal laws on abortion medicine.

“This isn’t Texas. Our State Structure doesn’t enable cities, counties or personal residents to limit ladies’s reproductive rights,” Torrez mentioned in a press release.

Proper-to-life activists mentioned the laws remained legitimate below 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 turn out to be regional locations for girls looking for abortions because the U.S. Supreme Court docket in June ended the nationwide constitutional proper to the process.

Positioned on New Mexico’s japanese plains, Clovis and Hobbs should not 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 powerful probability of passing the Democratic-controlled state legislature.

The small neighborhood of Eunice on Monday grew to become the third New Mexico city to go an ordinance, based on anti-abortion activist Mark Lee Dickson.

“Cities and counties throughout the state stay on good standing to go ordinances,” mentioned Dickson, director of Proper To Life East Texas, including that the laws had by no means been repealed by the U.S. Congress or declared invalid by the U.S. Supreme Court docket.

Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Further reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Modifying by Edwina Gibbs

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