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Roe v. Wade

The Southwest Women’s Law Center Issues Statement on the Commemoration of Roe v. Wade

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January 20, 2023, by SWLC

Today marks what would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. But last June, the Supreme Court of the United States eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, decimating access and jeopardizing people’s health, lives, and economic security.

  • Abortion access is workplace justice. Abortion is an exercise of self-determination that enables workers to plan out their futures, advance their education and careers, and maintain and improve their economic security.
  • People who are denied an abortion are four times more likely to live below the poverty line.
  • The Court’s decision to overturn the right to abortion is an attack on workers everywhere, especially workers who are lower-paid, people of color, women, immigrants, and LGBTQIA+.  
  • While we mourn the loss of Roe, we acknowledge that the abortion access crisis started long before Roe was overturned – for too long, access to abortion has been dependent on where you live and how much money you make.  
  • Today, while we commemorate Roe, we also recommit ourselves to building a world where communities thrive, and workers can exercise their full agency, determine their own reproductive futures, and live with dignity.

In New Mexico, we have been working to prepare for this year’s legislative session to make sure that those outside our state do not implement unnecessary and dangerous restrictions in reproductive healthcare. We are also leading the Paid Family & Medical Leave Act to ensure that no family will face economic uncertainty due to a health condition or family caregiving responsibilities.

For more information about Paid Family & Medical Leave, visit our website here: Southwest Women’s Law Center, Paid Family and Medical Leave Act (swwomenslaw.org)

For more information about the Reproductive Healthcare bills that the ACLU has been working on see this article: https://nmpoliticalreport.com/2023/01/19/legislators-to-push-for-two-reproductive-bills-in-a-post-roe-world/

SWLC’s Statement on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision

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Today we all have heavy hearts because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to take away healthcare rights from millions of Americans. This ruling strips away a constitutionally protected right and elevates states’ interest in a fetus over a pregnant person’s right to bodily autonomy. This decision also rolls back 50 years of pregnant people being able to make sound decisions about their life and health.  

Trigger bans in half of the states will take effect today. People who went to sleep last night with the right to make their own bodily and family decisions woke up this morning to criminal laws surrounding abortion. More states will likely follow with new bans of their own.  

In states like Oklahoma, abortion providers now face criminal consequences. Performing an abortion or attempting to perform the procedure is a felony punishable by a maximum fine of $100,000 or a maximum of 10 years in state prison, or both. The pregnant person who sought the abortion would not be criminally charged or convicted for seeking or obtaining the procedure; however, a failed Louisiana bill proposed this legislative session sought to do just that, signaling this as a possibility in states willing to pass similar measures through.  

States like Idaho are already considering banning emergency contraception like Plan B. Survivors of rape would have no option but to carry a pregnancy to term in states with abortion and emergency contraception bans.  

Other states have banned the shipping of medication for abortion. For people facing ectopic pregnancies, medication abortion pills are lifesaving. There are already stories of pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for this necessary medication.  

This decision also has much farther-reaching implications. This decision isn’t just about the right to make life and healthcare decisions about pregnancy. Justice Alito tried to distinguish abortion rights from other privacy rights through discussion over “potential life” and how abortion poses a “critical moral question.” However, the further justification for overturning the right to abortion has the potential to overturn other privacy right based critically moral questions by the same groups that oppose abortion. There is no doubt we will see future challenges to the right to contraception, the right to marriage, and the right to other bodily decisions. Justice Thomas’s concurrence in today’s decision specifically states his willingness to revisit the precedents establishing these very rights. We have already seen several states ban discussion of the LGBTQ+ community in schools and access to transgender care.  

Today is hard. This decision on the right to abortion is demoralizing. But we need to keep up the fight and turn large setbacks like this to our advantage. We should use this time to refocus our fight. 

We will center the abortion movement on people of color. We will uplift voices that have not always been heard. We will use this time to make sure we are including the LGBTQ+ community in conversations about reproductive rights and justice.  

We need to protest for the right to abortion and in the same breath discuss the crisis of reproductive healthcare “deserts.” When we talk about bans off our bodies, we also need to remember those bans include everything from abortion to the right to have a child and not be subject to forcible sterilization. 

We cannot and will not be silent in the face of this clear attack on the rights of more than half of Americans. Today we reset from this devastating blow. Tomorrow, we uplift historically silenced voices. Tomorrow, we channel our anger and sadness into action. Tomorrow, we restart the fight for access to abortion and reproductive justice. 

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JOIN US
Debrief on the U.S. Supreme Court Decision

Our panel of experts will break down the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision and what it means for the future of New Mexican pregnant people. We will also discuss the dangers of Crisis Pregnancy Centers and their role in the anti-abortion movement.

Register Here

Frustrated and scared about the news?

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We are right there with you, feeling the range of emotions from today’s news – anger, frustration, heartbreak, and even though we were bracing ourselves for it, shock. However, today abortion remains LEGAL, and we are fortunate to live in a state where abortion will remain legal, even if Roe is overturned. BUT we must remain VIGILANT. The Southwest Women’s Law Center is committed to fighting for access to safe abortion for future generations. Keeping women and girls in New Mexico safe and healthy is our priority. 

What the SWLC is doing to help the abortion healthcare crisis:

The SWLC is working to expose the Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC) industry in New Mexico. You may have driven by a CPC and not even realized it. With names like, “Pregnancy Resource Center”, “Casa de Mariposa”, and “Women’s Pregnancy Options”, it’s easy to mistake them for legitimate clinics. But CPCs are part of a national anti-abortion network collecting sensitive personal and medical information from pregnant people seeking healthcare. 

CPCs are anti-abortion organizations that target low-income people facing unintended pregnancies to prevent them from accessing abortion and contraception. In recent years, the anti-abortion movement has expanded and elevated the role of CPCs within the broader movement, in part by facilitating the coordination of sophisticated data collection and exploitation systems.  

Read more in Designed to Deceive, the report by the SWLC and partners that make up the Alliance: State Advocates for Women’s Rights and Gender Equality.

TAKE ACTION

Show up for Abortion Rights TODAY, May 3rd, 5 PM:
Albuquerque: Federal Courthouse, 333 Lomas Blvd. NW
Santa Fe: Federal Courthouse, 106 S. Federal Place
Las Cruces: City Hall/Albert Johnson Park, 700 N Main St.

Support these organizations:

Abortion funds:
Indigenous Women Rising
New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
Mariposa Fund

Abortion Healthcare and Policy:
Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains 

Work to expose CPCs and Abortion Healthcare Policy:
Support the SWLC and join us in preventing CPCs from receiving state funds or gaining more momentum in New Mexico.

URGENT: CPC Report Re-release

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BREAKING NEWS:

Groundbreaking Report Highlights How CPCs Are Breaching Data Privacy of Pregnant People for the Anti-Abortion Movement   

The Alliance is re-issuing our groundbreaking 2021 report, Designed to Deceive: A Study of the Crisis Pregnancy Center Industry in Nine States, with an urgent warning about the role of the newly expanded crisis pregnancy center (CPC) industry, is poised to play in the post-Roe United States.

Learn More about what our lawmakers and communities can do to protect pregnant people’s health and wellbeing.

The Southwest Women’s Law Center is committed to keeping women and girls in New Mexico safe and healthy. Please make a gift today and help us continue our important work, such as preventing pregnant people from being surveilled. Thank you!

Take Action

The Southwest Women’s Law Center Statement Regarding the 49th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

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January 22, 2022

It was an early morning in December when the U.S. Supreme Court (“Supreme Court”) first heard the case involving a Texas law limiting when a person could get an abortion. Roe v Wade was heard first in 1971 and again in 1972, but the Supreme Court finally decided on January 22, 1973. They ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the right to privacy and that a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion falls within that right to privacy.

Today we face a similar position – a law limiting when a pregnant person can get an abortion. Forty-nine years later, it is again left to the Supreme Court to determine if a pregnant person has the right to choose when to have an abortion. In short, the Dobbs v. Jackson case is asking to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The data is clear: Americans support Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to access abortion. In fact, over 79% of Americans support some system of choice for abortion seekers.

If Roe v. Wade is overturned, it is projected that roughly 25 million women and girls of reproductive age will lose abortion access entirely in the United States. Safe and legal abortions would virtually be unavailable for one-third of people ages 15–49 who may need it.

These estimates are based on populations in more than 20 states that have a combination of pre-Roe v. Wade bans referred to as “trigger bans” that will automatically make abortion illegal if the Court’s decision overturns Roe v. Wade or interprets it more narrowly.

In New Mexico, we are fortunate the “trigger ban” is no longer in effect. In 2021, the SWLC worked with allies to repeal a pre-Roe bill criminalizing abortion in New Mexico. Repealing the ban means that even if the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision for Dobbs overturns Roe v. Wade, pregnant people in New Mexico will still have access to legal and safe abortions. On this 49th anniversary of the decision of Roe v. Wade, it’s uneasy to think we as a country are in this precarious position. However, we are lucky to have a forward-thinking legislature in New Mexico that supports women’s rights and autonomy.

What would happen in NM if Roe was weakened or overturned?

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In just over two months, the Center for Reproductive Rights will stand before the U.S. Supreme Court to defend abortion rights. Again.

The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, challenges Mississippi’s law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

But this is more than Mississippi’s law. The Supreme Court allowed Texas’s law S.B. 8, an extreme ban on abortion, to stand. Most Texas women seeking abortion will have to go out of state. New Mexico abortion healthcare providers have already seen an increase in patients.

If Roe is weakened or overturned, what will happen in New Mexico?

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, “Abortion will remain accessible in New Mexico, but without legal protection. New Mexico courts have not determined whether the state constitution protects a right to abortion.”

The Southwest Women’s Law Center helped to repeal New Mexico’s pre-Roe ban during the 2021 legislative session. SWLC will continue to fight to protect reproductive rights for New Mexican women.

What can you do?

Attend a Women’s March this Saturday, October 2 – virtually or in person – enter your zip code to find a location near you. Some of the New Mexico events include (make sure to check the event site for the most up-to-date information):

Albuquerque

NMWM’s March for Our Rights

Tiguex Park, 1800 Mountain Rd NW, Albuquerque, NM 87104

Saturday, October 2, 2:00 p.m.

Santa Fe

Rally to Protect Women’s Reproductive Rights

New Mexico State Capitol, 490 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501

Saturday, October 2, 11:00 a.m.

Taos

Taos Rally for Reproductive Rights

Intersection in front of the World Cup Coffee Shop, 102 Paseo Del Pueblo Norte, Taos, NM 87571

Saturday, October 2, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Las Cruces

Stand Against S.B. 8

Las Cruces City Hall, 700 N Main St, Las Cruces, NM 88001

Saturday, October 2, 10:00 a.m.

Cloudcroft

Women’s March

Zenith Park, James Canyon Hwy, Cloudcroft, NM 88317

Saturday, October 2, 1:00 p.m.

Silver City

Women’s March & Rally for Abortion Justice

Visitor’s Center to Gough Park, 201 N. Hudson Street, Silver City, NM

Saturday, October 2, 2:00 p.m.

  • Support one of the many wonderful organizations working to protect women’s access to safe and legal abortion
  • Support us in our work today to keep abortion safe and legal and defend a woman’s right to choose