New frontline of U.S. abortion battles emerges in New Mexico

Record ID: 1694544

  • Title: New frontline of U.S. abortion battles emerges in New Mexico
  • Date: 26th October 2022
  • Summary: CLOVIS, NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES (RECENT - OCTOBER 24, 2022)(REUTERS) HIGH ANGLE VIEW OF PART OF THE CITY OF CLOVIS CAR DRIVING DOWN STREET IN CLOVIS MURAL ON SIDE OF BUILDING WITH PICTURE OF BRIDGE ON IT, READING: “Clovis Values Kids. Bridge of Opportunity.” CLOVIS, NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES (RECENT – OCTOBER 13, 2022)(REUTERS) CLOVIS CITY COMMISSION MEETING TO CONSIDER ANTI-ABORTION ORDINANCES LOCAL RESIDENTS AND OTHER ATTENDEES AT MEETING COMMISSION MEMBERS SEATED ON DAIS UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION, VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 26, 2022)(REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE)(English) FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH, AMY HAGSTROM MILLER, SAYING: “I think we're going to see the fight for abortion rights migrate to what I'm coming to think of as new borderlands. Right? Because we've lost the access to safe abortion in places like Texas and Missouri and Mississippi and Alabama. So that line is shifting. And now a sort of a new borderland is forming with New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Illinois. Then going over to the east, to, you know, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina.” CLOVIS, NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES (RECENT – OCTOBER 13, 2022)(REUTERS) ANTI-ABORTION ACTIVISTS GATHERED OUTSIDE OF CLOVIS CITY COMMISSION BUILDING (SOUNDBITE)(English) PASTOR AND HEAD OF THE RIGHT TO LIFE OF EAST TEXAS, MARK LEE DICKSON, ADDRESSING ACTIVISTS, SAYING: “Y'all are on the way to becoming the first city in New Mexico that's a sanctuary for unborn children.” / ACTIVISTS APPLAUD HOBBS, NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES (RECENT – OCTOBER 17, 2022)(REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE)(English) PASTOR AND HEAD OF THE RIGHT TO LIFE OF EAST TEXAS, MARK LEE DICKSON, SPEAKING AFTER HOBBS CITY COMMISSION MEETING, SAYING: “So the threat is very real in this community. And we know that Whole Woman’s Health wants to set up on the border because they want to get as many Texas residents for abortions right here in New Mexico.” CLOVIS, NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES (RECENT - OCTOBER 24, 2022)(REUTERS) HIGH ANGLE VIEW OF PART OF THE CITY OF CLOVIS HOBBS, NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES (RECENT – OCTOBER 17, 2022)(REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE)(English) PASTOR AND HEAD OF THE RIGHT TO LIFE OF EAST TEXAS, MARK LEE DICKSON, SPEAKING AFTER HOBBS CITY COMMISSION MEETING, SAYING: “Our plan is to not stop. We are planning on any state here in the nation where a city wants to go forward in making their city a sanctuary city for the unborn, then we want to help them accomplish that process with an ordinance which has been well thought out that will survive challenges.” (SOUNDBITE)(English) PASTOR AND HEAD OF THE RIGHT TO LIFE OF EAST TEXAS, MARK LEE DICKSON, ADDRESSING ANTI-ABORTION ACTIVISTS GATHERED OUTSIDE OF THE HOBBS CITY COMMISSION MEETING, SAYING: “The abortion industry that is targeting your community, I believe is a terrorist organization.” ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 26, 2022)(REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE)(English) MANAGING REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND GENDER EQUITY ATTORNEY, ACLU NEW MEXICO, ELLIE RUSHFORTH, SAYING: “And let's be clear, abortion is health care, and it is highly regulated in our state. There's an entire framework an entire statutory system that regulates health care, and claims that municipalities or other communities within our state have the authority to pull abortion care, to pull reproductive health care out of that statutory scheme, is frankly absurd.” HOBBS, NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES (RECENT – OCTOBER 17, 2022)(REUTERS) HOBBS CITY COMMISSION MEETING TO CONSIDER ANTI-ABORTION ORDINANCES CLOVIS, NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES (RECENT – OCTOBER 24, 2022)(REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE)(English) LOCAL PROGRESSIVE ACTIVIST AND A FOUNDER OF EASTERN NEW MEXICO RISING, LAURA WIGHT, SAYING: “Many states are in danger of facing, you know, similar situations. And that's the, that's the crux, right? So that's why the overturning of Roe v Wade and leaving that decision up to the states is such a big deal, because when it's left up to the states, then you're at the mercy of whoever is in charge of the state at that particular time or in this case, local government.”
  • Embargoed: 9th November 2022 22:22
  • Keywords: New Mexico Roe v. Wade Supreme Court abortion abortion rights anti-abortion city ordinances reproductive rights
  • Location: CLOVIS, HOBBS AND ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES/ WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES/ UNIDENTIFIED LOCATIONS
  • City: CLOVIS, HOBBS AND ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, UNITED STATES/ WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES/ UNIDENTIFIED LOCATIONS
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Fundamental Rights/Civil Liberties,Government/Politics,United States
  • Reuters ID: LVA001406222102022RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The new frontline of the U.S. abortion battle is on the remote plains of New Mexico, where two conservative towns are set to outlaw the medical procedure despite it remaining legal in the state after Roe v. Wade was struck down.
    The towns of Clovis and Hobbs do not even have abortion clinics but are strategic, activists and clinicians say, because they are near the border with Texas, to the east.
    Texas was one of the first states to impose a near-total ban on abortion and providers could face up to life in prison there.
    The New Mexican abortion provider within closest reach for most Texas women is currently in Albuquerque - about a four-hour drive from Clovis and five hours from Hobbs.
    Reuters attended recent city commission meetings in both Clovis and Hobbs where the anti-abortion ordinances were advanced and has learned from one of the largest independent abortion providers in the United States that the legal moves have caused it to reconsider setting up a clinic in eastern New Mexico.
    Anti-abortion activists hope other towns will follow Clovis and Hobbs to vastly shrink where abortions are still performed, especially in other states controlled by Democrats. Activists in New Mexico fighting for women's access to safe abortions fear a new fight is coming to these "blue" states.
    Clovis and Hobbs are likely to face legal challenges, but similar measures have survived lawsuits in Texas.
    “I think we're going to see the fight for abortion rights migrate to what I'm coming to think of as new borderlands,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, the CEO of Whole Woman's Health, one of the nation's largest independent providers of abortion.
    “Because we've lost the access to safe abortion in places like Texas and Missouri and Mississippi and Alabama. So that line is shifting,” she said.
    The town-level strategy is the brainchild of a Christian pastor and a conservative lawyer who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was a critic of Roe.
    Mark Lee Dickson, a pastor and head of the Right to Life of East Texas, founded the "sanctuary cities for the unborn" movement in 2019. In New Mexico, Dickson worked with conservative lawyer Jonathan Mitchell, who was the architect of Texas' 2021 "heartbeat" abortion law.
    The influx of abortion-seeking women from Texas and word that a clinic could open in their towns is what drove pastors in Clovis and Hobbs to reach out to Dickson.
    “So the threat is very real in this community. And we know that Whole Woman’s Health wants to set up on the border because they want to get as many Texas residents for abortions right here in New Mexico,” Dickson said after the Oct. 17 city commission meeting in Hobbs advanced the ordinance there.
    But Ellie Rushforth, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Albuquerque, said the legal basis for the city ordinances is dubious.
    “Let’s be clear, abortion is health care, and it is highly regulated in our state,” Rushforth said, “and claims that municipalities or other communities within our state have the authority to pull abortion care, to pull reproductive health care out of that statutory scheme, is frankly absurd.”
    Both Clovis and Hobbs are located in a far more conservative chunk of the state than the more liberal areas around Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Residents there bristle that their state is controlled by politicians who do not share their views on many issues.
    But Laura Wight, a 45-year-old Clovis citizen who helped found Eastern New Mexico Rising, a local progressive group opposed to the proposed abortion ordinance, said the measure was an attack on the rights of local women and those in Texas who may seek safe abortions in eastern New Mexico.
    Wight said she has reached out to the ACLU and that her group will attend the Nov. 3 Clovis city commission meeting where a final vote is expected on the ordinance.
    "Many states are in danger of facing similar situations," Wight said. "That's the crux of it. That's why the overturning of Roe v. Wade and leaving that decision up to the states is such a big deal. Because when it's left up to the states, you're at the mercy of whoever is in charge of the state at that particular time, or in this case, the local government."
    New Mexico's Attorney General Hector Balderas told Reuters that he was concerned at developments in Clovis and Hobbs and had directed staff to "evaluate this recent activity, due to the city's legal obligation to protect access to healthcare for women and families."
    After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and its federal abortion protections in June, Hagstrom Miller, the CEO of Whole Woman's Health, was forced to shut down the group's abortion clinics in Texas.
    “I do think that it's a huge win for the anti-abortion forces, and that's how they count it, and they're celebrating it and are emboldened by it,” she said.
    Hagstrom Miller said she will open clinics in New Mexico and is considering opening a facility in Clovis or Hobbs, in large part to serve women arriving from Texas. But the possibility of "sanctuary" ordinances has given her pause about operating in eastern New Mexico.
    "I think we have to consider what communities will our patients be safe in? What communities can they blend in? Can they get a hotel? Can they go to a restaurant without being profiled? And the same would go with our staff and would go with our physicians,” she said.
    The ordinances both Clovis and Hobbs are set to pass rest upon federal law from the 1940s that forbids using the U.S. Postal Service or a private carrier such as FedEx to mail or deliver anything "designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion." The cities would demand that abortion clinics adhere to that federal law to obtain a city permit to operate.
    Michael Seibel, an Albuquerque-based anti-abortion lawyer who consulted with Dickson and Mitchell on the Clovis and Hobbs proposed ordinances, said he hopes the model will be followed in Democratic-controlled states across the country.
    The U.S. Supreme Court decision in June overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized women's constitutional right to abortion. That gave states the power to ban abortion. Seibel proposes going beyond state-by-state to locality-by-locality.
    "New Mexico and many other blue states are actually pro-life states that are just dominated by one or two big cities," Seibel said, speaking in Hobbs after the city commission gave its preliminary approval to the "sanctuary" ordinance on Oct. 17. "The vast majority of towns and villages throughout a blue state may in fact be pro-life."
    A final vote in Hobbs is set Nov. 7.
    Polling carried out by the Pew Research Center has shown in the past that while a majority believe abortion should be legal in at least some cases, 45% of adults in New Mexico believe that abortion should be "illegal in all/most cases."
    Ellie Rushforth, the ACLU New Mexico attorney, said the proposed ordinances violate the state constitution. She sent a letter to Clovis city commission members saying passing the ordinance would "expose the city and its citizens to potentially significant liability."
    Rushforth said the ACLU stood ready to defend women's right to reproductive care.
    “We've got extremist outsiders pushing an agenda that is not aligned with New Mexican values and trying to dictate New Mexico policy regarding reproductive health care,” she said. “Folks are spreading misinformation, fear-mongering and using our communities as a testing ground for their dubious legal theories.”
    (Production: Brad Brooks; Ashraf Fahim)
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