ALBUQUERQUE — New Mexico’s top prosecutor on Monday asked the state Supreme Court to nullify abortion ordinances that local elected officials have passed in recent months in conservative reaches of the Democratic-led state.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez urged the high court to intervene against ordinances he said overstep local government authority to regulate health care access and violate the New Mexico Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process.
At a news conference, Torrez said the ordinances are significant even in regions with no abortion clinics because they threaten to restrict access to reproductive health care in people’s homes. More than half of U.S. abortions are now done with pills rather than surgery.
“This is not Texas. Our State Constitution does not allow cities, counties or private citizens to restrict women’s reproductive rights,” Torrez said in a statement. “Today’s action sends a strong message that my office will use every available tool to swiftly and decisively uphold individual liberties against unconstitutional overreach.”
It’s not clear how soon the New Mexico Supreme Court could decide to take up the issue. Torrez said he hopes his petition to the Supreme Court will inspire a quick response within weeks or months — avoiding the potentially yearslong process of pursuing a civil lawsuit.
The filing targets Roosevelt and Lea counties and the cities of Hobbs and Clovis — all on the eastern edge of the state near Texas, where most abortion procedures are banned.
Clovis and Lea County officials declined to comment Monday, citing pending litigation. Officials could not immediately be reached in Hobbs and Roosevelt County.
Prosecutors say abortion ordinances approved in November by an all-male city council in Hobbs and in early January by Roosevelt County define “abortion clinic” in broad terms, encompassing any building or facility beyond a hospital where an abortion procedure is performed — or where an abortion-inducing drug is dispensed, distributed or ingested.
Torrez warned Roosevelt County’s abortion ordinance in particular gives private citizens the power to sue anyone they suspect of violated the ordinance and pursue damages of up to $100,000 per violation.
“The threat of ruinous liability under the law operates to chill New Mexicans from exercising their right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy and health care providers from providing lawful medical services,” the attorney general wrote in his petition to the state Supreme Court.
In 2021, the Democrat-led Legislature passed a measure to repeal a dormant 1969 statute that outlawed most abortion procedures, ensuring access to abortion in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year that overturned Roe v. Wade.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she wants to see legislation that would codify the right to an abortion across the state.
Lawmakers have already proposed measures that would prohibit local governments from placing restrictions on abortion access — and call for putting in place protections for doctors and patients.
During her reelection campaign last year, Lujan Grisham cast herself as a staunch defender of access to abortion procedures. She has called a local abortion ordinance an “affront to the rights and personal autonomy of every woman in Hobbs and southeastern New Mexico.”
In June, the governor signed an executive order that prohibited cooperation with other states that might interfere with abortion access in New Mexico, declining to carry out any future arrest warrants from other states related to anti-abortion provisions.
The order also prohibited most New Mexico state employees from assisting other states in investigating or seeking sanctions against local abortion providers.
She followed up in August with another executive order that pledged $10 million to build a clinic that would provide abortion and other pregnancy care in Southern New Mexico.
The Clovis ordinance, approved in early January, also seeks to keep new clinics from opening. It’s facing a petition challenge, but Mayor Mike Morris said he thinks voters there would overwhelmingly vote to keep the ordinance if it were on the ballot.
Days later, Roosevelt County followed with its own ordinance prohibiting the operation of clinics, restricting the delivery of abortion-related supplies and medicines.
In the court filing, Torrez argues the New Mexico Constitution provides broader protection of individual rights than the U.S. Constitution — and that the local ordinances violate New Mexicans’ inherent rights, liberty and privacy.
He also argued the action by the city and county commissioners amount to overreach by attempting to legislate on a matter of statewide importance for which the Legislature has preempted local regulation.
The attorney general asked the Supreme Court to suspend the local abortion ordinances while deliberations are underway.
