Knowing it was coming has not eased the apprehensions New Mexico’s abortion providers and reproductive rights advocates have over the end of Roe V. Wade.
For years, as other states have tightened abortion restrictions, the poor, largely rural state with a long history of lacking health care access has seen increasing numbers of out-of-state patients seek services in its handful of clinics. Demand skyrocketed last year after Texas lawmakers banned abortions at about six weeks into a pregnancy, and it is expected to rise even more after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that there is no right to abortion.
In Texas and other southern states, most abortions ceased immediately after the ruling, cutting off access for millions of women of child-bearing age in their home states and cementing New Mexico as the closest safe haven for abortion for a large swath of the United States. Out-of-state providers have already begun planting roots in the state, seeking to offer abortion care.
