Last Friday, the New Mexico Supreme Court blocked four county and city ordinances that sought to enforce abortion restrictions in the state. The ruling comes on the heels of a petition filed last January by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez that claims that such ordinances violate civil rights as guaranteed by the state Constitution, and infringe on the state’s authority to regulate health care.
The ruling follows the passage of New Mexico HB7, the Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care Freedom Act, which was signed into law last month by Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham. The law prohibits any public municipality or government from imposing ordinances, laws, or regulations that prevent individuals from receiving reproductive or gender-affirming care.
Local cities and communities proposing anti-abortion ordinances seek to supersede state laws protecting abortion rights by relying on an antiquated 19th Century federal law (even though last December the U.S. Justice Department determined that the act does “not prohibit the mailing of certain drugs that can be used to perform abortions”).
The Comstock Act passed in 1873, outlaws the sale, distribution, mailing, and possession of “obscene” and “lewd” materials (this includes contraceptives). The law was the brain-child of militant evangelical Anthony Comstock, who was appointed as a special agent of the USPS, and given free rein to determine what materials were subject to confiscation and criminal prosecution. Being the religious zealot he was, he based his decisions regarding the legality of publications and items sent through the mail on his own personal religious beliefs.
Anti-abortion groups have resurrected the Comstock Act to restrict the mailing of abortion-inducing medications such as mifepristone and misoprostol. Such medications account for 53% of all facility-based abortions in the U.S. and provide much-needed medical care for women. Restricting the mailing of abortion-inducing pills would disproportionately affect citizens in rural communities, as well as the working poor, and individuals who have limited access to healthcare or have a disability.
Recently, another city in New Mexico has joined the Comstock trend. Edgewood, a small rural community just east of Albuquerque will hold a public workshop next week to discuss a proposed anti-abortion ordinance. Like its predecessors in the eastern half of the state, the ordinance invokes the Comstock Act, calling it “federal law,” and would make it a felony for a medical provider operating within city limits to ship or receive abortion pills.
Despite New Mexico HB7 and the recent state Supreme Court ruling, conservatives and anti-abortion groups in the Land of Enchantment (as well as in other states) will no doubt push back with the ridiculous Comstock Act, and Edgewood is no exception.
Such self-serving efforts by right-wing groups seek to undermine state laws guaranteeing the right to an abortion, and more importantly, ignore the wishes of voters who support a woman’s right to choose.