Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called the new full-spectrum reproductive health clinic in Las Cruces the beginning of a new reproductive healthcare infrastructure in the state during a celebration to mark the groundbreaking of the new clinic on Thursday.
Lujan Grisham allocated $10 million in the capital outlay bill in the 2023 legislature to build a full-spectrum reproductive healthcare clinic in Las Cruces. Prior, in 2022, she announced an executive order that stated she would provide the $10 million for the clinic as part of her response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade. She said on Thursday that the new clinic “should be the beginning of creating a primary care infrastructure dedicated to women and their families.”
Lujan Grisham and other elected officials, reproductive rights advocates and clinicians and clinic partners, celebrated the groundbreaking of that new building during a groundbreaking ceremony and made the first ceremonial shovel after several remarks. The new clinic will be located off Lohman Avenue in the area that includes MountainView Regional Medical Center and its medical buildings.
Dr. Eve Espey, professor and chair of the Department of OB-GYN and Family Planning fellowship director at the University of New Mexico, told NM Political Report that the full spectrum of care the clinic will provide will include women’s primary care, including pap smears and preventive healthcare, basic gynecological care, full-spectrum contraceptive care, transgender care, some fertility care and, potentially, vasectomies. It will also provide both medication abortion and procedural abortion care.
Espey said the clinic would have a “limited basket of services” initially and some of that care might not be available at first.
Bold Futures, along with Strong Families New Mexico, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and University of New Mexico, are the four partners providing expertise to make the clinic a reality. PPRM, which opened a small brick-and-mortar clinic in Las Cruces last year, will merge with the new clinic after it is operational and PPRM will be involved in operating the new facility. Whitney Phillips Woods, vice president of brand and operations at PPRM, told NM Political Report that, sometime after PPRM joins the new facility, it would close its current clinic, which is small and currently able to provide medication abortion, not procedural abortion.
Dr. Mike Richards, University of New Mexico Health Sciences interim executive vice president, said during his remarks that the facility will have 8,000 square feet of space and that it should be operating within 18 months. But Lujan Grisham repeatedly said she wanted to see it built sooner.
“I’m still going to be governor, by God, by the time we open those doors,” Lujan Grisham said during her remarks.
She spoke of how she and advocates began to prepare for the Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade years before. She said that if New Mexico had not enacted the bill in 2021 that repealed the state’s 1969 dormant anti-abortion law, New Mexico would have had an “Arizona moment.” For a few weeks last spring, the state of Arizona was expecting to enforce an abortion ban that was written during that state’s territorial government when President Abraham Lincoln was in the White House. But Arizona, despite a fight from Republicans, enacted a law that maintains the 15-week ban that the state put into effect shortly after the Dobbs decision. Arizona voters will decide on a ballot initiative that could expand access, if passed.
Lujan Grisham also spoke about the dire needs of individuals who live in Texas and Oklahoma who cannot access abortion care due to state bans with few exceptions.
“Let New Mexico be a beacon of light,” she said.
She also equated bodily autonomy with democracy, saying that we can’t have a democratic society if individuals can’t make decisions about their own bodies.
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat trying to hold the state’s 2nd Congressional District seat in November, also attended the ceremony and said these are “personal decisions” and are “not the place for government interference.” He said the Dobbs decision “threatens access to another really important part of healthcare,” in vitro fertilization and other assisted reproductive technologies. He referred to a bill he signed onto earlier this year, along with more than 200 Democrats in the House, which would codify IVF treatments. The bill was introduced into the House in January.
Espey, during her remarks, called the groundbreaking “one of the most amazing professional days of my life,” in her 34-year career as an OB-GYN doctor.
“I could not be more proud to work and live in a place that has such an incredible commitment to human rights,” she said.
Espey said “we have a big problem in this state with maternal morbidity and mortality and it starts early in pregnancy.”
New Mexico ranks higher than the national average for maternal morbidity and mortality. Espey said the New Mexico Doula Association will be working with the new clinic so that there will be lactation specialists to help patients with post-natal care. She said the UNM Family Planning division has been “thinking deeply on health inequity in how we provide care and promote autonomy and equity.”
“I’ve never seen UNM hit the gas pedal the way we have with this project. To me, it’s like an asteroid,” she said.
UNM School of Medicine Dean Dr. Patricia Finn said during her remarks that this clinic is “just the beginning.”
“Not only the beginning. We are the example. It’s a joyful moment,” she said.