© Reuters. A affected person prepares to take Mifepristone, the primary medicine in a medical abortion, at Alamo Ladies’s Clinic in Carbondale, Illinois, U.S., April 20, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/ File Picture
By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) – The New Mexico Supreme Courtroom, based mostly on arguments it heard on Wednesday, appeared poised to dam a number of native ordinances within the state that goal to limit distribution of the abortion tablet.
Nonetheless, the excessive court docket appeared unlikely to rule that the state’s structure features a proper to abortion, because the state’s Lawyer Basic Raul Torrez, a Democrat, had urged, leaning as an alternative towards deciding the case on narrower authorized grounds.
The arguments earlier than the New Mexico Supreme Courtroom got here on the identical day the U.S. Supreme Courtroom took up the Biden administration’s enchantment of a U.S. appeals court docket resolution that will curb how the tablet, referred to as mifepristone, is delivered and distributed, barring telemedicine prescriptions and shipments of the drug by mail.
Mifepristone is taken with one other drug referred to as misoprostol to carry out medicine abortion, which accounts for greater than half of all U.S. abortions.
Abortion is authorized in New Mexico, which has develop into a vacation spot for ladies searching for abortions from close by states, like Texas, which have banned it following the U.S. Supreme Courtroom ruling final yr ending its recognition of a constitutional proper to abortion.
Following that ruling, New Mexico’s Roosevelt and Lea Counties and the cities of Clovis and Hobbs, all on the Texas border, handed ordinances searching for to cease abortion clinics from receiving or sending mifepristone or different abortion-related supplies within the mail.
The ordinances invoked the federal Comstock Act, a nineteenth century regulation in opposition to mailing abortifacients, and mentioned that clinics should adjust to the regulation.
Torrez filed an emergency petition with the state Supreme Courtroom searching for to dam the ordinances, saying the state’s structure included a proper to abortion. In March, the state handed a regulation explicitly blocking native governments from interfering with entry to abortion care.
The excessive court docket’s 5 justices, all elected as Democrats or appointed by a Democratic governor, on Wednesday signaled that the state regulation was sufficient to determine the case.
“(The ordinance) is designed to prevent any provider or clinic from offering reproductive healthcare unless your client says it is consistent with what we view to be a moral doctrine,” Chief Justice Shannon Bacon informed Valerie Chacon, a lawyer for the city of Hobbs. “It by definition is interference.”
Chacon had argued that the ordinance was a part of the county’s “inherent right to create ordinances that regulate business,” and was indirectly associated to abortion.
On the similar time, the court docket appeared hesitant to handle abortion rights.
“Generally we don’t reach constitutional issues unless absolutely necessary,” Justice Briana Zamora informed Torrez early within the argument.
Torrez mentioned a ruling guaranteeing abortion rights was mandatory as a result of, “those who attempt to limit access to women’s healthcare have not and will not stop attempting to do so.”
The court docket didn’t say when it could rule.
