Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed an executive order Wednesday allocating $10 million in taxpayer dollars to fund an abortion clinic.
The governor’s capital outlay funds for the 2023 legislative session will go toward developing a clinic in Dona Ana County to provide abortions, prenatal care, labor and delivery, postpartum care and support, family planning and medical care for miscarriages, the executive order read. The order directs the state’s Department of Health to develop a plan expand abortion access across the state.
The order additionally directs the Human Services Department to impose policies to “improve that efficiency and sustainability” of abortion and other services.
“As more states move to restrict and prohibit access to reproductive care, New Mexico will continue to not only protect access to abortion, but to expand and strengthen reproductive health care throughout the state,” the governor said in a press release. “Today, I reaffirm my resolve to make sure that women and families in New Mexico – and beyond – are supported at every step of the way.”
Today I signed an executive order expanding access to reproductive health care in New Mexico.
I am designating $10 million for the establishment of a full-spectrum reproductive health care clinic in southern New Mexico to expand access to essential care, including abortion. pic.twitter.com/kMwwrBpMvL
— Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (@GovMLG) August 31, 2022
The order said abortion is an “essential part of reproductive healthcare” and declared that it must be safe, legal and easy to access. It then said that more women are relying on New Mexico to undergo an abortion as its neighboring states have banned or restricted the procedure. (RELATED: New Mexico Late-Term Abortion Bill Sparks Some First Amendment Concerns)
“Unfortunately, many of our neighboring states have adopted laws that drastically limit or prohibit access to abortion and other reproductive health care services following the United States Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned almost 50 years of precedent regarding the federal right to reproductive healthcare services,” the order said.
Dona Ana County is located at the very southern point of the state where it borders Mexico. The county is in the center of the state where it does not border its neighboring states, Texas and Arizona. Arizona will either ban abortion after 15 weeks of gestation or enforce an 1800’s law that bans all abortions with very few exceptions. Texas’s trigger law has recently taken effect which outlaws all abortions except in cases threatening the mother’s life.
Grisham signed the executive order alongside the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women over a Zoom call, the press release said. She has been in isolation since testing positive for COVID-19, according to Las Cruces Sun News.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June, Grisham signed an executive order that same month to prevent state agencies and employees from engaging in criminal investigations by other states in connection to a woman who received an abortion in New Mexico.
The governor is seeking re-election in a November race against her Republican opponent, Mark Ronchetti, who has advocated for banning abortion after 15 weeks of gestation, according to Las Cruces Sun News.
The state repealed its 1969 statutory ban on abortion last year in order to uphold access to the procedure in the event that Roe was overturned, Las Cruces Sun News reported. The Mississippi clinic that filed suit in the Dobbs case announced their plans to relocate to Las Cruces, New Mexico, after the Court’s decision.