New Mexico bills safeguard abortion, gender-affirming care

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico legislative panel superior a invoice to guard abortion suppliers and sufferers from out-of-state interference, prosecution or extradition makes an attempt, as Democratic leaders search to shore up current rights to abortion entry for residents in addition to guests from states with bans on the process.

A 5-3 vote on partisan traces with Republicans in opposition despatched the invoice to a second committee listening to earlier than it may go to a full Senate vote. Legislators have till March 18 to ship the invoice to Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who received reelection final yr on pledges to safeguard abortion entry.

Lujan Grisham joined a bunch of 20 governors this week in launching a community meant to strengthen abortion entry within the aftermath of a U.S. Supreme Court docket choice nixing a lady’s constitutional proper to finish a being pregnant and shifting regulatory powers to state governments.

A invoice from New Mexico legislators together with Democratic state Sens. Linda Lopez of Albuquerque and Brenda McKenna of Corrales would supply new authorized protections for native abortion suppliers and recipients — prohibiting any associated discrimination by native medical licensing boards and banning or limiting cooperation by New Mexico state and native authorities with out-of-state pursuits that try to intervene with reproductive well being care.

“We need to be sure that our suppliers are protected in order that they aren’t criminalized by Texas or another state,” Lopez advised a Senate panel.

Public prosecutors can file civil fees linked to interference with reproductive well being care, with fines for convictions of as much as $5,000 per violation, and $10,000 for trying to avoid some provisions. People can sue independently for damages.

“What we don’t need to see in our state … is suppliers paranoid once they do their jobs, and sufferers paranoid,” mentioned Kat Sánchez of Daring Futures, a New Mexico-based abortion rights group.

The New Mexico state Home on Tuesday endorsed companion laws that will guarantee statewide entry to reproductive and gender-affirming well being care, on a 38-31 vote. No less than two counties and three cities in japanese New Mexico just lately authorized restrictions on abortion below ordinances which might be being challenged by New Mexico Lawyer Normal Raúl Torrez.

Each payments lengthen related protections to gender-affirming well being care as abortion. Gender-affirming well being care is outlined broadly within the payments as “psychological, behavioral, surgical, pharmaceutical and medical care, providers and provides supplied to assist a person’s gender identification.”

Greater than a dozen states have payments to ban gender-affirming well being take care of younger folks being introduced earlier than legislatures this yr. Some search to ban therapy for gender dysphoria — which is outlined because the misery attributable to an individual’s gender assigned at beginning not matching the gender with which they determine — till the particular person is of their 20s.

Republican state Sen. Gregg Schmedes of Tijeras, a surgeon by occupation, cautioned New Mexico Senate colleagues Wednesday towards writing into regulation a “particular well being care mannequin” regarding gender-affirming care, and expressed worry of an ideological divide on medical care.

“We now have to learn to dwell collectively. We now have to be neighbors with Oklahoma and Texas,” Schmedes mentioned. “This invoice sort of scares me in a method that we’re headed towards that nationwide divorce that individuals are speaking about.”

In 2021, New Mexico’s Democrat-led Legislature handed a measure to repeal a dormant 1969 statute that outlawed most abortion procedures, guaranteeing entry to abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade final yr within the Dobbs v. Jackson Girls’s Well being Group case.