The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled late Thursday against several local ordinances in the state aimed at restricting the distribution of the abortion pill.
In a unanimous ruling, the court said the regulations infringe on the Legislature’s authority to regulate reproductive care.
“Our Legislature has granted counties and municipalities all powers and duties not inconsistent with the laws of New Mexico. The regulations violate this core requirement and infringe on the Legislature’s authority to regulate access to and provision of reproductive health care,” the court wrote in its opinion by Judge Shannon Bacon.
It declined to comment on whether the regulations violated state constitutional protections.
Abortion is legal in New Mexico, which has become a destination for women seeking abortions, especially from Texas, and other states that banned the procedure following the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended women’s constitutional right to abortion and power over the issue was transferred. to individual states.
Following that ruling, leaders in New Mexico’s Roosevelt and Lea counties and the cities of Clovis and Hobbs, all on the Texas border, passed ordinances to prevent abortion clinics from receiving or shipping mifepristone, a pill taken with another drug. taken to perform a medication abortion. , and other abortion-related materials by mail. Medical abortions account for more than half of all abortions in the US. Last June, the Supreme Court upheld access to the drugs.
The regulations invoked the federal Comstock Act, a 19th century “anti-vice” law against the mailing of abortifacients, drugs that cause abortions, and said clinics must comply with the law.
Under the Roosevelt County ordinance, any person other than a government employee could file a civil lawsuit seeking damages of at least $100,000 for each violation of the Comstock Act.
The New Mexico Supreme Court warned against this, saying that creating a private right of action and awarding damages was “clearly intended to punish protected conduct.”
Attorney General Raúl Torrez praised the court’s ruling Thursday, saying the core of the argument was that state laws preclude any action by local governments to engage in activities that would infringe on citizens’ constitutional rights.
“The bottom line is that access to abortion is safe in New Mexico,” he said. “It is enshrined in law through the recent New Mexico Supreme Court ruling and thanks to the work of the New Mexico Legislature.”
New Mexico House Speaker Javier Martínez called access to health care a fundamental right in New Mexico.
“It doesn’t take a genius to understand the legal framework we have. Local governments do not regulate health care in New Mexico. It’s up to the state,” the Albuquerque Democrat said.
However, opposition to abortion runs deep in communities in New Mexico along the border with Texas, which has one of the most restrictive bans in the US.
But Democrats, who control every statewide elected office in New Mexico and have majorities in the state House and Senate, have moved to strengthen access to the service.
In 2021, the New Mexico Legislature repealed a dormant 1969 statute that banned most abortion procedures as crimes, ensuring access to abortion even after the reversal of Roe v Wade.
And in 2023, Democratic New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill that overrides local ordinances restricting access to abortion and creates a shield law that protects abortion providers from investigations by other states.
In September, construction began on a state-funded reproductive health care and abortion clinic in southern New Mexico that will cater to local residents and people traveling from neighboring states.
The new clinic should open in 2026 and provide services ranging from medical and procedural abortions to contraception, cervical cancer screenings and adoption education.
It was not immediately clear whether the ruling could be appealed to federal court. The New Mexico Supreme Court opinion explicitly declined to address conflicts with federal law and based its decision solely on state provisions.
Texas-based attorney Jonathan Mitchell, a former Texas attorney general and architect of that state’s strict abortion ban, said he looks forward “to litigating these issues in other states and presenting the meaning of the federal Comstock Act to the Supreme Court of the United States. States”.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to reporting