After Roe v. Wade, the fight over abortion access moves to New Mexico
Headline Legal News
The sanctuary in Grace Covenant Reformed Church was packed.
People stood shoulder to shoulder wherever they could — near the stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Bible, behind the neatly lined rows of chairs that serve as pews, against a wall covered in crosses made from painted wood, wire, glass and ceramic red chiles.
Bibles and hymnals rested under every seat, but they weren’t used that Monday night last September. There was no sermon, because this wasn’t a church service.
Residents of Clovis, a town of some 40,000 people a mere 20-minute drive to the Texas state line, crammed into this little brick building that night to discuss a plan of action to ban abortion.
Just three months earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had issued its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that had legalized abortion in the U.S. for almost 50 years.
As trigger laws banning the procedure began going into effect across the nation — in places including neighboring Texas — abortion providers took up residence in New Mexico, which has some of the most permissive abortion laws in the U.S.
“As the laws in this country change before our very eyes,” Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said on the day Roe was reversed, “I will continue to fight for the right to a safe, legal abortion in New Mexico and stand as a brick wall against those who seek to punish women and their doctors just because they seek the care they need and deserve.”
In the year since Dobbs, New Mexico has been a brick wall and a safe haven — for those who provide abortions and those who desire or need them.
Related listings
-
US sues SpaceX for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and others
Headline Legal News 08/26/2023The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday sued SpaceX, the rocket company founded and run by Elon Musk, for alleged hiring discrimination against refugees and people granted asylum.The complaint, filed in an administrative court within the departmen...
-
Abortion messaging roils debate over Ohio ballot initiative
Headline Legal News 07/25/2023The fraught politics of abortion have helped turn an August ballot question in Ohio that would make it harder to change the state constitution into a cauldron of misinformation and fear-mongering.State Issue 1, the sole question on the ballot, calls ...
-
Supreme Court rules in favor of Black Alabama voters
Headline Legal News 06/12/2023The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a surprising 5-4 ruling in favor of Black voters in a congressional redistricting case from Alabama, with two conservative justices joining liberals in rejecting a Republican-led effort to weaken a landmark voting...