AG Torrez challenges legality of local abortion bans (Bans by SE NM cities and counties)

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | January 23, 2023 | Dan McKay

[CedarDave]

SANTA FE – Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed an emergency petition Monday challenging a series of anti-abortion ordinances passed by communities in eastern New Mexico in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court decision.

In a 27-page filing, Torrez asked the state Supreme Court to strike down the ordinances, arguing they violate civil rights guaranteed by the state Constitution.

The city- and county-level measures also infringe on the state’s authority to regulate health care, Torrez said, and they attempt to create a series of local abortion bans.

“It is simply inappropriate, unlawful and unconstitutional for local governments to use their limited authority to try to create a patchwork of regulations that would deny women access to essential health care services in their community,” Torrez said Monday in a news conference in his office.

The legal challenge comes after the cities of Hobbs and Clovis, and the counties of Lea and Roosevelt passed local ordinances targeting abortion. The votes followed the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year ending abortion rights at the federal level and sending the issue to the states.

The local measures in New Mexico vary, but they generally aim to ban use of the mail or other interstate carriers to deliver abortion drugs, citing a federal law. The Roosevelt County ordinance also says it would be enforced by allowing individuals to file civil lawsuits seeking damages of at least $100,000.

Torrez, a Democrat, contends that the city and county ordinances misinterpret a 19th-century federal law on the mail and conflict with state law regulating the practice of medicine.

Furthermore, he said, the ordinances violate the state Constitution’s guarantees to equal rights, liberty and privacy – which he said are more robust than what’s outlined in the U.S. Constitution.

“We have the ability to provide enhanced rights,” Torrez said.

[CedarDave]

Notice that comments by the AG are all about women's access to "essential health care services." Nothing anywhere in his comments about the health of the unborn child.

[CedarDave]

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[17th Miss Regt]

“Despite our best efforts there are still too many negro children in this state.”

[frank ballenger]

So true.

Why don’t the types who want to kill pre-born babies just go to Michigan or California where they get aid to travel there and are totally free to do their deeds at any point in a pregnancy legally.

In Michigan even the death of the mother by negligence can’t be blamed on the abortionist, who no longer has to be an MD with hospital privileges, just a “health practitioner.”

A shameful state of affairs.