Abortion Access

A look back at what the last year has wrought

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A week ago this coming Saturday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade and upending nearly 50 years of precedent. But the story really starts before June 24, 2022. Abortion is legal in New Mexico and remains so in part because advocates began working years ago to ensure that it would continue to be legal in the event the political makeup of the court changed. Joan Lamunyon Sanford, executive director of  abortion fund provider New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, said that in October of 2020, when the U.S. Senate confirmed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, she knew “we would lose Roe.”

“We were anticipating it as far back as that. We started comparing it to a natural disaster, though this is a created disaster,” she said.

Abortion Access

Planned Parenthood clinics in New Mexico expand, offering medication abortion care at all locations

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As New Mexico continues to be a state that offers legal abortion services, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains opened a new clinic in Las Cruces in May and expanded services at its Farmington location to include medication abortion. Adrienne Mansanares, chief executive officer and president of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said the new Las Cruces clinic began seeing patients and offering medication abortion up to 11 weeks the second week of May. The Farmington Planned Parenthood clinic began offering medication abortion a week later. The Albuquerque Planned Parenthood, which has been planning a larger building for a few years, is expecting to open its new and expanded clinic in August, Mansanares, told NM Political Report. In the current abortion landscape, safety is a constant consideration.

Health

Bill to eliminate copays for STI treatment clears Senate committee

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A bill to eliminate co-pays and cost sharing for sexually transmitted infection testing, treatment and prevention cleared the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee by a 5-2 vote on Friday. SB 132, STI Prevention and Treatment, will, if enacted, help to stem the increased rates of sexually transmitted disease, Senate Pro Tem Mimi Stewart said. Stewart, a Democrat from Albuquerque, sponsored the bill and said the rates of STI  have increased both in New Mexico and nationally since 2020. Kayla Herring, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood of Rocky Mountains, said “treatment is prevention because it is passed through sexual contact.”

“It increases the likelihood a patient will seek STI testing so they won’t have the fear that if they are positive, they will then have to make a large payment for medication. We need to reduce the rates of STI’s in New Mexico and we believe this will do it,” Herring, who acted as an expert witness, said.

Health

New full-spectrum reproductive health care clinic in Las Cruces still in planning stages 

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A new full-spectrum reproductive health clinic in Las Cruces is still, at least, a few years from becoming a reality, said Bold Futures Executive Director Charlene Bencomo. Within a few months of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade through its Dobbs decision in late June, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced a second reproductive executive order, pledging $10 million toward a reproductive health care clinic in Doña Ana County.  The pledge will be in the capital outlay bill in the 2023 Legislative session, Lujan Grisham’s Press Secretary Nora Meyers Sackett, told NM Political Report. 

Bencomo said the clinic will be in Las Cruces and that it is still in the “fundraising stage.” She said that, in part, because the goal is for the clinic to be innovative in challenging health care norms, it’s hard to say at this point how long it will be before the clinic will be fully operational. She said the partners, of which Bold Futures is one, who are behind the clinic want to “leave behind what’s not working in the healthcare system and build something new.”

The project has formed an advisory board made up of 13 members. A group of individuals interested in the project, including Bencomo, Adriann Barboa, representing Strong Families New Mexico, Dr. Eve Espey, representing the University of New Mexico Health and Sciences Center, Adrienne Mansanares, executive director of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and Gina Deblassie, health policy advisor for Lujan Grisham, gathered last week to discuss the project publicly. Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains told NM Political Report in an email that it is “working closely with the local partners in Las Cruces to envision and establish this health center, and we plan to be involved in a meaningful way now and in the future.”

The University of New Mexico said to NM Political Report in an email that UNM Health and Health Sciences is one of the entities collaborating on the clinic.

Abortion Access

Legislators to push for two reproductive bills in a post-Roe world

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The New Mexico Legislature will debate its first two pieces of reproductive health care bills since the fall of Roe v. Wade last summer. One is designed to protect privacy and the other is intended to prevent municipalities and counties from placing local prohibitions on abortion care. The one that could bring the most controversy is the Reproductive Health Care Freedom Act, sponsored by state House Rep. Linda Serrato and state Sen. Linda Lopez, both Democrats from Albuquerque. Serrato told NM Political Report that this bill was not crafted in response to the ordinances some New Mexico municipalities have considered or passed in some rural parts of the state. She said individuals within the reproductive health community were able to anticipate those actions ahead of time and were already talking about the bill before Clovis held a special city council meeting in mid-October to consider an ordinance that would have given the city council authority to deny an abortion clinic a license to practice within the city limits.

Albuquerque city council

ABQ city council reaffirms $250K for Planned Parenthood, includes funds for housing nonprofits

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Albuquerque City Councilor Tammy Fiebelkorn helped thwart an effort to reroute city funds already allocated to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains for the current year’s budget on Monday evening during a city council meeting. Earlier this summer, Albuquerque City Councilor Renee Grout introduced R-22-46, a resolution that would reallocate funds the city council already approved in May that would be allocated to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. 

Fiscal Year 2023 began July 1 with the city budget already signed by the mayor, which included the allocation to PPRM. Fiebelkorn introduced an amendment to the proposed ordinance that would leave the $250,000 already allocated to PPRM intact while allocating an additional $100,000 to each of the nonprofits, Barrett House shelter and Prosperity Works for a community energy efficiency project. The council voted in favor of Fiebelkorn’s amended resolution 6-3 after an effort to table it failed.  

Fiebelkorn sponsored the original Albuquerque City Council resolution in May that allocated $250,000 to PPRM. Fiebelkorn told NM Political Report she is proud of sponsoring the original bill and said she was a patient of Planned Parenthood herself when she was a college student.

ACLU-NM

U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, creating public health emergency

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The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade Friday morning, creating what individuals working on the front lines of reproductive access in New Mexico called a “public health emergency” during a press conference Friday afternoon. Farinaz Khan, a healthcare provider, said every abortion clinic in four states closed by Friday morning. “As women and people with uteruses, we are second class citizens in our own country. Our patients will be deeply harmed by this decision,” she said. Many during the press conference stressed that abortion is, and will remain, legal and safe in New Mexico.

Roe v. Wade

Impact of Oklahoma’s six-week abortion ban a precursor of what’s to come

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Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and other providers could be opening up more brick-and-mortar abortion clinics near New Mexico state lines, one official with PPRM said. On the heels of the leaked U.S. Supreme Court document this week, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill Tuesday, effectively immediately, that initiated a Texas-style mechanism to make abortion unobtainable in that state at about six weeks gestation. The law would allow anyone to sue an organization or individual who “aids and abets” a patient receiving an abortion on or about six weeks gestation. Officials with Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains told NM Political Report earlier this week, before Politico reported on the U.S. Supreme Court draft decision indicating the court will likely overturn Roe v. Wade this summer, that what’s been happening in Oklahoma could be a precursor of what’s to come for New Mexico in the coming months. Earlier this year, Stitt signed a law that will outlaw the procedure entirely except in the event of a medical emergency, punishable as a felony and a $100,000 fine.

Albert Johnson Park

Advocates, elected officials and the public respond with rallies and outrage over Supreme Court draft decision on abortion rights

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The leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the case that appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade woke up many on Tuesday to a “shocking” reality which may be imminent. Politico released on Monday a leaked draft document, dated February from the Supreme Court. The document is a majority opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case the court heard in early December. Because the document is still a draft, there is still opportunity for the court to rule differently in late June or early July, though it appears unlikely with the current makeup of the court. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito authored the draft, which overturns Roe v. Wade and rules in favor of the state of Mississippi in the Dobbs case.

Adrienne Mansanares

New regional Planned Parenthood head announces expanded medication abortion care

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A Planned Parenthood clinic in Albuquerque added medication abortion care to its options this month, creating a sixth clinic in New Mexico to offer some level of abortion care in the state. Adrienne Mansanares, the new president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, told NM Political Report that in addition to the expanded care at the Northeast Heights clinic, she is hopeful that PPRM will also be able to formally announce a larger clinic in Albuquerque sometime later this year, as well. Mansanares said the expanded care at the Northeast Heights clinic will enable PPRM to help with both the needs of the local community, patients traveling from other areas of New Mexico that lack abortion care access and continue to serve people coming from other states, such as Texas. Mansanares, who was the chief experience officer for PPRM beginning in 2016, stepped into her new position to replace Vicki Cowart, who announced her retirement last fall. 

Cowart said through a news release that she couldn’t “think of a more passionate, dedicated and forward-thinking leader” than Mansanares. “The impact Adrienne has had on this organization cannot be overstated, and PPRM will be in strong, talented, and innovative hands under her leadership,” Cowart said.