New Mexico group creates haven for Texas abortion seekers

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – If there is a silent witness to the effects of Texas’ abortion law, it’s a cozy and sterile room in an old office building in downtown Albuquerque.

The hospitality suite at the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice is somewhere between a spa waiting area and a makeshift medical tent. Four cots with pillows in paper cases and eye masks wrapped in cellophane wait, ready for the next group of Texas abortion seekers.

It’s a world of Joan Lamunyon Sanford’s making, where abortion is spoken about loudly and matter-of-factly. The 63-year-old executive director of the reproductive rights nonprofit said it contrasts doctors’ offices across the Texas border where the procedure is mentioned in hushed tones, if at all.

Large sheets of grid paper titled “Messages for future travelers” shout words of encouragement written with different colored markers.

“Do not feel ashamed because you made a choice for your life,” one client wrote. “Just know you are not alone.”

One morning every week, up to 10 people board a flight from Dallas to Albuquerque to terminate their pregnancies in a state where abortion is still legal. They’re driven to their appointments in shifts before returning to the nonprofit’s offices for a couple of hours of rest before their flight home that evening.

Like other states that have doubled down on abortion protections post-Roe, New Mexico has become a haven for patients from nearby states with restrictions or bans, including Texas and Oklahoma. The women find the abortion programs through news coverage, Texas abortion funds or by word-of-mouth, but the process is often shrouded in mystery.

After Texas lawmakers passed chilling abortion restrictions in 2021 and the Supreme Court overturned the abortion protections of Roe vs. Wade in 2022, the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice pivoted its model and staffed up. The organization supported 953 Texans in 2023. It saw 22 New Mexico residents in the same period.

The Dallas Morning News visited the Albuquerque operation but was unable to speak with any of the women who passed through the gates of the nearby abortion clinic. The trip out-of-state can be marked by fear and uncertainty, both for potential legal repercussions and social fallout. Lamunyon Sanford and her staff are fiercely protective of the passengers entrusted to their care.

The logistics of multi-day travel are unfeasible for people who can’t afford to miss work or find overnight childcare. The same-day flight model is born out of desperation, Lamunyon Sanford said.

New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, in partnership with the First Unitarian Church of Dallas, needed a solution that prioritized convenience without becoming impersonal, one that balanced the needs of individual travelers with rapid-pace appointments bookended by flights across state lines. The trip is free of cost for travelers and comes with no financial or need-based prerequisites.

Across the hall from the hospitality suite is a men’s bathroom, the only one on the floor. It’s a relic of a time when women couldn’t work in the offices where travelers now recover. Lamunyon Sanford put a fake plant in the urinal.

“It’s like sleepover vibes,” said program director Brittany Defeo, 34.

The activists have a standing group flight reservation each week; names of fliers are needed only 72 hours in advance. More often than not, the tickets are claimed within days of a trip, mostly by Texans within driving distance of Dallas.

Every seat is filled.

The making of an abortion rights activist

Lamunyon Sanford never heard her mother call herself a feminist, but she kept both her birth name and her married name on her nursing license. It set the tone for Lamunyon Sanford’s childhood.

“That was unusual in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s for women to keep their birth name,” she said.

Lamunyon Sanford grew up in Albuquerque attending a United Methodist church with her parents and two younger siblings. She stopped going to regular services when she went to college.

When she moved to Gallup, New Mexico, she found community in monthly women’s circles hosted by the local church. The habit stuck when they returned to Albuquerque in the late 1980s, even though she later left the United Methodist Church.

It was there, in a United Methodist church downtown, that Lamunyon Sanford encountered the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights, founded in 1978, which would eventually become NMRCRC.

“I was intrigued,” Lamunyon Sanford said. “I was raised with this model of women’s moral authority and the Methodist Church. Here was a place where those two things came together.”

Lamunyon Sanford signed up as a phone banking volunteer while working her job as a physical education teacher. She joined the board of directors and eventually decreased her teaching gig to part time so she could keep her benefits and spend more time with the abortion rights organization.

“It started out as that organization where the executive director does all the things. Twenty hours a week, at least on paper,” Lamunyon Sanford said. “Eventually we had enough fundraising and donors so that I could do that full time.”

Working out of her den, Lamunyon Sanford organized clergy and lay volunteers to escort people to and from Planned Parenthood for abortion care. A retired Presbyterian clergy member called, saying a couple of patients needed to stay overnight. Lamunyon Sanford found places for them to sleep, the beginning of their practical support program.

In 2023, the group spent nearly $400,000 supporting women traveling to and from their abortions in New Mexico.

Most of the organization’s clients in the early and mid-2000s were from New Mexico, although the number of people who sought their services was small because New Mexico’s Medicaid program covers the cost of abortions and related travel. NMRCRC sources its funding through a mix of donations and grants.

In 2009, Dr. George Tiller was fatally shot by an anti-abortion extremist at a church nearly 600 miles away in Wichita, Kansas. The doctor was one of the few who performed late-term abortions.

Albuquerque clinic Southwestern Women’s Options brought on two of Tiller’s former colleagues a year later to provide abortions in all trimesters, making it one of a handful of clinics in the country that offered such a procedure.

“Now, Southwestern Women’s Options had people coming from all over the country,” Lamunyon Sanford said.

“And sometimes out of the country,” Defeo added.

The clinic settled a wrongful death lawsuit for $900,000 in 2021 after a woman died in a multiday outpatient process.

Between the influx of patients and a failed 2013 Albuquerque referendum to institute an abortion ban after 20 weeks of pregnancy, abortion rights groups captured national attention and a swell of funding. New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, of which Lamunyon Sanford was still the only full-time employee, could finally afford to expand.

Cross-state partners

On Sept. 1, 2021, the Southwestern Women’s Surgery Center in Dallas saw its patient count plummet, not from a fall in demand, but from a new Texas law that banned abortion after six weeks and placed the onus of enforcement on civilians.

The Rev. Daniel Kanter, senior minister and CEO of First Unitarian Church of Dallas, stepped foot into the abortion clinic for his shift sitting, talking and praying with patients before their appointments. A waiting room that typically saw 100 people a day now had only 30.

“Where are all the patients?” Kanter asked.

“Fifteen of them are under six weeks and 15 weren’t,” a clinic staff member said. “We had to turn them away.”

Texas has three overlapping bans on the books. The “Heartbeat Act” allows private individuals to bring civil suits against anyone who performs or aids an abortion after six weeks of gestation. Texas’ “trigger ban” went into effect when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, making performing an abortion illegal. Then there’s the pre-Roe ban, which is still possibly in effect, that criminalizes performing or providing the means for an abortion.

Abortions in Texas dropped from about 50,000 in 2021 to 40 in the first eight months of 2023, according to Texas Health and Human Services data. Nationwide, abortions have slightly increased.

Kanter’s mind jumped to Southwestern Women’s Options in Albuquerque, the sister site to Southwestern Women’s Surgery Center. It’s nearly a 10-hour drive from downtown Dallas, even farther for patients coming from the city’s eastern suburbs. But it’s two hours by plane.

The First Unitarian Church of Dallas has become one of the strongest abortion rights advocates in the region, with ties to the movement pre-dating the Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973. Its positioning in the movement is in line with the pro-reproductive choice stance of the Unitarian-Universalist denomination.

The Albuquerque clinic connected patients with the flight program. First Unitarian’s chaplains shepherded them to the airport for the group flight, while Lamunyon Sanford’s team met the Texans when they landed.

Kanter’s church and the group in New Mexico fill the role of information provider previously found in Texas OB-GYN offices. Health care workers don’t always know whether they’re allowed under Texas law to share information about abortion, said Kari White, executive and scientific director at Resound Research for Reproductive Health.

“We have been hearing this kind of thing in Texas for years, happening at publicly funded health centers,” White said. “They feel like being able to provide information about abortion or where to get abortion care is not something that is permissible.”

The Texas-New Mexico partnership made changes in response to threats from anti-abortion activists and the shifting legal landscape.

Groups of 20 travelers every two weeks eventually became weekly flights with groups of 10 — the smallest number of travelers that qualify for the group ticket discount. The smaller group was less conspicuous.

“Safety had a lot to do with our decision,” said Defeo, who joined New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice in 2015.

Anti-abortion activists on both sides of the Texas-New Mexico border are aware of the increased abortion-related travel. New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice advertises its flight program on its website. Protesters camp on the Southwestern Women’s Options’ sidewalks and lean posters with pictures of infants against nearby trees and power lines.

“Texas, we will help you save your baby,” one reads.

Defeo used to fly to Dallas the night before a trip and join the travelers on their way to Albuquerque, but New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice has decided to keep its staff in New Mexico to shield them from legal liability. New Mexico’s governor signed a “shield law” that protects abortion providers from investigations by other states. Those protections may extend to support organizations, according to reproductive rights research firm The Guttmacher Institute.

Now Defeo waits at baggage claim each week for the marathon day to begin.

The marathon

There’s a loose-leaf tea for every feeling at the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice office, labeled with yellow sticky notes.

Lavender for sleep. Chamomile reduces inflammation and cramps. Rose petals soothe the heart.

The kitchen in the hospitality suite is stocked with Fritos, granola bars and movie theater popcorn. On a shelf below there are first aid supplies and barf bags, in case someone feels sick after their procedure, be it surgery or abortion pills.

The organization funded 1,040 abortion seekers last year, ranging from ages 9 to 48. When the 9-year-old traveled from Texas to New Mexico for an abortion after abuse, NMRCRC took extra measures to ensure she was making the decision for herself and that her experience would remain private, DeFeo said.

Once the staff gets the travelers back to their office, they fade into the background.

“There are a lot of connections in this particular room,” Defeo said. “People just start talking and by the end of it they’re carrying each other’s bags for them and they’re like, ‘Oh, let me help you to the bathroom.’”

Lamunyon Sanford doesn’t share the story of her abortion with travelers. Her experience looked different than most of the people who fill their offices now. Her parents supported her decision, and her dad’s insurance covered the cost. She got up the next day to attend her college classes.

“In a lot of ways, I had the abortion that should be the norm,” Lamunyon Sanford said. “If someone were to directly ask me, ‘Have you had an abortion and can you tell me about it?’ I would. But it’s important, for our callers and travelers, for us to center their needs.”

The travelers go to the clinic in small groups to limit contact with protesters outside Southwestern Women’s Options. New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice rarely lets travelers bring a family member or friend on the journey so they can protect the privacy of other travelers. For the 20% of travelers who don’t speak English, the organization provides translators.

On occasion, travelers change their minds.

“You don’t owe us your abortion, and we will still send you home,” Defeo said. “And if next week you decide that that was the right thing for you, we’ll fly you back out.”

The group rests together, shares a meal, and then as quickly as they arrived in New Mexico, they leave.

Some of the travelers stay in contact with each other, or with New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. One Dallas client referred five abortion seekers to the program after her experience, Defeo said.

Most go back to their lives. Some get picked up at the airport by loved ones to make a multi-hour drive back to their hometown.

Others return home alone and tell no one.