Otero County, N.M., Commissioner Couy Griffin speaks to reporters at federal court docket in Washington on June. 17. The county fee on Thursday authorised a message saying that abortion clinics should not welcome within the politically conservative county. (Gemunu Amarasinghe/Related Press)
Gemunu Amarasinghe
SANTA FE – A neighborhood authorities board in southern New Mexico authorised a message Thursday saying that abortion clinics should not welcome in politically conservative Otero County – though state legislation permits most abortion procedures.
The nonbinding anti-abortion decision, authorised in a 3-0 vote, mentioned the fee “stands firmly in opposition to the presence within the county of Deliberate Parenthood clinics or some other clinics the place abortion is practiced at will and on demand.”
At the very least two teams have introduced plans to open new abortion amenities in New Mexico after the U.S. Supreme Courtroom in June overturned Roe v. Wade and took away girls’s constitutional safety for abortion nationwide.
One in every of them is the abortion supplier on the heart of the Dobbs v. Jackson Girls’s Well being Group choice that overturned Roe.
Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin sponsored of the decision that condemns “voluntary abortion” practices. He mentioned it responds to issues that New Mexico might turn out to be a regional hub for folks looking for abortions from neighboring states the place the procedures are unlawful or closely restricted.
The decision says abortion procedures geared toward defending the well being of a mom “will happen in a neighborhood hospital underneath the care of a doctor,” and that the county takes a “impartial place” in cases involving incest or rape.
Otero County Lawyer Roy Nichols mentioned the decision doesn’t have any authorized ramifications.
“This isn’t going to outlaw something. That is extra for the opinion to be expressed,” he mentioned.
The Democrats who management the New Mexico Legislature assist entry to abortion, as does Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.
State lawmakers final 12 months repealed a dormant 1969 legislation that outlawed most New Mexico abortion procedures as felonies, making certain entry to abortion even after the Supreme Courtroom rolled again the nationwide assure.
Uncooked feelings about authorities regulation of abortion emerged on the Otero County fee assembly in Alamogordo for debate on the decision, with dueling references to Christian scripture and quotations from the U.S. founders geared toward bolstering arguments for and in opposition to authorized abortion entry.
Commissioner Gerald Matherly mentioned he voted in opposition to an identical anti-abortion decision three years in the past and supported the brand new measure as a result of it leaves out opposition to abortions in cases of rape, incest or when a lady’s life is in peril.
“The state helps (with) contraception capsules, they’re serving to the moms after the infants are born,” Matherly mentioned. “I do not consider that an individual can simply exit and have a wild Friday evening – she will get pregnant and may go off and get an abortion. She ought to have, some folks ought to have, tasks.”
Griffin – a firebrand conservative who was convicted of getting into a restricted space on the U.S. Capitol within the Jan. 6, 2021, rebel – urged different rural, conservative counties to undertake an identical resolutions to attempt to comprise the proliferation of abortion clinics.
“If the governor desires to embrace it in Santa Fe, in the event that they wish to have abortion clinics in Las Cruces, in the event that they wish to do it in Albuquerque, they’re properly inside their rights to take action,” Griffin mentioned. “But when they don’t need it Carlsbad, in the event that they don’t need it in Roswell, in the event that they don’t need it in Farmington, then these county fee boards must get the identical form of decision handed.”
Lujan Grisham signed an govt order final month that prohibits cooperation with different states that may intrude with abortion entry in New Mexico, declining to hold out any future arrest warrants from different states associated to anti-abortion provisions.
The order additionally prohibits most New Mexico state staff from aiding different states in investigating or looking for sanctions in opposition to native abortion suppliers.