By Susan Morée
The New Mexico Supreme Court announced Jan. 9 its unanimous decision to invalidate ordinances passed in small communities that previously banned abortion.
Several municipalities passed ordinances banning abortion, relying on an 1800s law called the Comstock Act. Those municipalities were the cities of Clovis and Hobbs along with Lea and Roosevelt counties.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued those municipalities in 2023, arguing the ordinances went against the state’s constitution and against a law passed by the New Mexico Legislature prohibiting public bodies from discriminating against abortion rights.
Torrez said during a press conference Thursday that “local governments have no authority whatsoever to engage in that kind of legislative activity that would infringe on the constitutional rights of citizens in this state.”
“The bottom line is this: Abortion access is safe and secure in New Mexico,” Torrez said.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, abortion opponents have pushed the idea that the Comstock Act could be reinforced.
The Comstock Act, passed under President Ulysses S. Grant after the U.S. Civil War, prohibits, among other things, the mailing of supplies related to abortion. The act has not been enforced regarding abortion in more than 50 years.
Shortly after Roe v. Wade fell, Alamogordo and Otero County were the first to pass resolutions banning abortion, but a resolution is not enforceable. Proponents of abortion rights say even unenforceable resolutions banning abortion are designed to create fear within the community regarding abortion access.
Within less than a year after Roe fell, Lea and Roosevelt counties passed enforceable ordinances, as did Clovis and Hobbs. The city of Eunice also passed an ordinance prohibiting abortion as did the city of Edgewood. But Edgewood struggled to approve a resolution to put the abortion ordinance on a local election ballot after a group of citizens filed a petition requesting the citizens weigh in. Both of the Eunice and Edgewood ordinances came after Torrez filed his lawsuit, so they were not named in the suit.
Justin Howalt, city manager for the city of Clovis, told NM Political Report that “the city of Clovis is reviewing today’s Supreme Court ruling and it has no comment in relation to the matter.”
The city of Hobbs did not respond to a request for comment. Lea and Roosevelt counties did not respond to a request for comment.
Abortion clinics that provide abortion services are located only in major cities in New Mexico, such as Albuquerque and Las Cruces, with abortion medication available only in Santa Fe and Farmington. The state has been considered a safe haven for abortion with no restrictions to access since the court overturned Roe and, since then, the state has enacted some of the strongest abortion rights laws protecting both providers and patients. Prior to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade to let states pass their own abortion laws, New Mexico clinics performed around 3,000 abortions a year. But in 2023 alone, the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive research organization, estimated New Mexico abortion clinics saw 14,200 abortion patients just from Texas.