Ad
Justices consider whether to strike down local laws restricting abortion access
The New Mexico Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday over whether cities and counties can place restrictions on abortion access after Attorney General Raúl Torrez asked justices to strike down local laws enacted in conservative jurisdictions.
Torrez filed an emergency petition earlier this year challenging a series of anti-abortion ordinances passed by several eastern New Mexico jurisdictions following a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022 that ended abortion rights nationwide, sending the issue back to the states.
Justices did not issue an opinion on Wednesday. But justices signaled that the local ordinances appear to violate a recent state law that prohibits public bodies from interfering with abortion access.
New Mexico lawmakers this year enacted a law that prohibits public bodies in New Mexico from interfering with access to abortion or gender-affirming care. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed House Bill 7 into law in March.
“HB 7, to me in my mind, is really your strongest argument here,” Justice Briana Zamora told Torrez shortly after he began his arguments. “I don’t know how much more clear it could be.”
Torrez said he agreed that the local ordinances violate House Bill 7 but urged justices to issue a broader ruling that the ordinances violate New Mexico constitutional guarantees of abortion rights.
“By taking up the constitutional dimensions in this state, you will afford women in this state a greater level of constitutional protection under our own constitution,” Torrez told justices.
The local ordinances violate the state’s equal rights amendment prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender, he said.
Lawyers and activists packed the small Santa Fe courtroom, where the five-member court heard oral arguments as State Police vehicles lined the street outside.
At least four state supreme courts are grappling with abortion litigation last week in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year to rescind the constitutional right to abortion.
Ad
Local laws approved in Roosevelt County and in the cities of Clovis and Hobbs late last year and earlier this year would create a licensing requirement for abortion clinics. They also ban the use of the mail or other interstate carriers to deliver abortion drugs. Lea County also outlawed use of the mail to deliver abortion drugs.
Valerie Chacon, an attorney for the city of Hobbs, told justices the city’s ordinance is not intended to restrict abortion in Hobbs.
“Our ordinances, they are business ordinances,” similar to building and fire ordinances, Chacon argued. “We are OK issuing business licenses to abortion clinics. We’re not trying to ban abortion clinics whatsoever.”
Oral Argument: State v. Board of County Commissioners for Lea County, S-1-SC-39742
Chief Justice Shannon Bacon called Chacon’s argument “a ruse.”
“You can call it a business license all day long but it’s interfering with what HB 7 is expressly saying you cannot do,” Bacon said.
Hobbs’ ordinance also calls on the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico “to investigate and prosecute abortion providers and abortion-pill distribution networks” under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, or RICO.
