This story was originally published by Source New Mexico.
There is no timeline for the future $10 million reproductive health center in Las Cruces, NM, but lawyers came to the capital and proclaimed a vision beyond abortion care.
About two dozen supporters of the health center — including advocacy nonprofits such as Forward Together, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and Bold Futures NM — met in a room on the third floor of the Roundhouse Friday.
Adriann Barboa, Bernalillo County Commissioner and policy director at Forward Together, said the center will not be limited to abortion, but could also be expanded to include a birth center.
“We deserve the full spectrum of reproductive health care, the basic needs, abortion care, gender affirming care — we want it all,” Barboa said.
New Mexico’s border region — Hidalgo, Luna and Doña Ana counties — has higher infant mortality rates, higher teen pregnancy rates and higher rates of HIV than other places in the state, a 2019 Health Equity report found.
The region is close to Texas, where abortion is almost completely banned. In August, a state law went into effect criminalizing abortion at any stage of pregnancy except in the case of a life-threatening medical emergency. Doctors or other healthcare providers convicted of breaking the law can be punished with life imprisonment.
Few abortion clinics in southern New Mexico offer medical abortion, which is limited to the early stages of pregnancy. The owners of the last abortion clinic in Mississippi moved to Las Cruces in June. The clinic, dubbed “Pink House West,” would be the only facility offering surgical abortion outside of Albuquerque.
Anti-abortion groups vowed to close Pink House West in the summer. The Southwest Coalition for Life has been demonstrating against clinics in Las Cruces and El Paso since 2014 by coordinating marches, gathering on the curb in front of clinics to talk to patients and buying offices next to clinics.
Teo Ortega is part of an 11-member advisory group that determines which services the center will include and develops the center’s construction.
Ortega, who grew up in New Mexico and now lives in Boston, said their options in Southern New Mexico were limited for transaffirmative health care.
“Las Cruces is a desert in many ways, and in this respect a resource desert,” Ortega said.
While the advisory group met with an architect late Friday, Angelique Karnes, a Bold Futures spokesperson, said there is no timeline yet for when the clinic’s plan will be completed.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham campaigned for re-election promising the $10 million facility and passing a law to protect abortion rights. She announced the center in August, as New Mexico’s abortion clinics — already short-staffed — reached capacity with an increase in out-of-state patients following the fall of Roe against Wade.
On the opening day of the session last week, she brought up the clinic again.
“I’m going to ask you to honor our commitment to invest $10 million in full-service, reproductive health care — a center in southern New Mexico.”
And she urged lawmakers to codify abortion rights in New Mexico’s statute in her State of the State address. As things stand, abortion is legal in New Mexico, but there is no law on the books guaranteeing the right.
Speaking to the group on Friday, Lujan Grisham said any law protecting abortion should be “clear, concise and constructive.” Narrow language in a proposed statute would avoid challenging cities and counties to ban abortion clinics, she said. In November, the Hobb City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting the opening of abortion clinics within the city limits.
Lujan Grisham said it’s easy to get the $10 million one-time investment to build the clinic, but staffing and operating it will be the challenge.
“If we don’t have reproductive health specialists and doctors… to build a team to provide care and medical support to women and their families, it will never exist in these communities,” said Lujan Grisham.
In 2021, lawmakers repealed a 1969 state law that criminalized abortion. That change removed requirements for doctors to administer abortions, said Dr. Eve Espey, the chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of New Mexico Hospital.
Allowing nurses and physician assistants to provide abortion care will alleviate some of the nationwide shortages of physician staff, Espey said.
“I think we’re going to have a really nice pipeline of providers who are really committed to providing this care,” she said.
Espey said UNM would continue to train doctors and the clinic could be an important educational resource.
“We attract a very social and reproductive justice community of students and residents to the university,” she said. “I’m confident we can staff that clinic.”
Stephanie Murrillo, an El Paso midwife who attended the meeting, said the center is “thinking outside the box” that will provide better care to more people in the border areas.
“Having this birth center will change not only New Mexico, but the states around it,” she said. “And that will be a wave of impact across the country.”
Danielle Prokop is a freelance reporter in the Borderlands. She covers climate change, local government and communities in Southern New Mexico and Far West Texas. She can be reached at [email protected]
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