© Reuters. A patient prepares to take mifepristone, the first medication in a medication abortion, at the Alamo Women's Clinic in Carbondale, Illinois, U.S., April 20, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) – The New Mexico Supreme Court, based on arguments it heard on Wednesday, appeared poised to block several local ordinances in the state that aim to restrict distribution of the abortion pill.
However, the high court seemed unlikely to rule that the state constitution includes a right to abortion, as the state Attorney General Raul Torrez, a Democrat, had urged, leaning instead to decide the case on narrower legal grounds.
The arguments before the New Mexico Supreme Court came on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the Biden administration's appeal of a U.S. appeals court decision that would limit how the pill, called mifepristone, excluding telemedicine prescriptions and shipments of the medication by mail.
Mifepristone is taken with another medication called misoprostol to perform medication abortions, which account for more than half of all abortions in the United States.
Abortion is legal in New Mexico, which has become a destination for women seeking abortions in nearby states, such as Texas, that have banned it following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that ended its recognition. of the constitutional right to abortion.
After that ruling, Roosevelt and Lea counties in New Mexico and the cities of Clovis and Hobbs, all on the Texas border, passed ordinances seeking to prevent abortion clinics from receiving or mailing mifepristone or other materials related to the abortion.
The ordinances invoked the federal Comstock Act, a 19th-century law against mailing abortifacients, and said clinics must comply with the law.
Torrez filed an emergency petition with the state Supreme Court seeking to block the ordinances, saying the state constitution included a right to abortion. In March, the state passed a law that explicitly prevented local governments from interfering with access to abortion care.
The high court's five justices, all elected Democrats or appointed by a Democratic governor, said Wednesday that state law was sufficient to decide the case.
“(The ordinance) is designed to prevent any provider or clinic from offering reproductive health care unless their client says it is consistent with what we consider a moral doctrine,” Chief Justice Shannon Bacon told Valerie Chacon, an attorney for Hobbs City. . “By definition, it is interference.”
Chacón had argued that the ordinance was part of the county's “inherent right to create ordinances regulating businesses” and was not directly related to abortion.
At the same time, the court seemed hesitant to address the right to abortion.
“We generally do not reach constitutional issues unless absolutely necessary,” Judge Briana Zamora told Torrez early in the argument.
Torrez said a ruling guaranteeing the right to abortion was necessary because “those who try to limit women's access to health care have not stopped and will not stop trying.”
The court did not say when it would rule.
