New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is shocked that her state’s Democratic-controlled Senate failed to pass a bill codifying the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
The proposed measure, HB 51, would have repealed decades-old, mostly nonenforceable statutes that define “abortion,” outline parental consent requirements for minors seeking to terminate a pregnancy, and categorize the receiving or performing an abortion as a fourth-degree felony.
“Health care decisions are the sole province of an individual, her family, her doctor and her faith. Fear of the law has no place in the equation,” Grisham said. “This old, outdated statute criminalizing health care providers is an embarrassment. That removing it was even a debate, much less a difficult vote for some senators, is inexplicable to me.”
Democratic state Rep. Joanne Ferrary, who co-sponsored the House version with Democratic colleague Georgene Louis, was similarly shocked.
“We did expect more to be voting in favor and it didn’t turn out that way,” she said.
The bill’s defeat is a black eye for the state’s Democratic Party, which controls both the House and the Senate. The failure of HB 51 is especially embarrassing considering it comes not long after Democrats solidified their control of the state legislature following the November 2018 midterm elections. They even replaced term-limited Republican Gov. Susana Martinez with a progressive Democrat.
On Feb. 6, HB 51 passed in the New Mexico House by a vote of 40 to 29. The bill, which was only one page long, called for the repealing of all statutes criminalizing abortion. More specifically it called for abolishing Sections 30-5-1 through 30-5-3.
Section 30-5-1 offers legal definitions for abortion. It also outlines requirements for minors seeking to terminate a pregnancy.
Section 30-5-2 is the only provision in a “New Mexico statute that expressly allows a doctor to refuse to participate in an abortion on moral grounds,” according to the Sante Fe New Mexican.
Section 30-5-3 reads:
Whoever commits criminal abortion is guilty of a fourth degree felony. Whoever commits criminal abortion which results in the death of the woman is guilty of a second degree felony.”
It was the House bill’s call for the repeal of the “conscience clause” that caused most tension among lawmakers. So, when HB 51 made its way to the New Mexico Senate, it was amended in the Senate Judiciary Committee to allow for the “conscience clause” to remain in state law. More specifically, the Senate version replaced the word “through” with “and,” specifying it would repeal only the “definitions” and the “criminal abortion” sections of the law.
But on March 14, the repeal bill died in the Senate anyway, voted down 24 to 18, with eight Democrats crossing the aisle to join all 16 Republicans in opposing the bill.
The Democrats who voted “nay” included Sens. Pete Campos Carlos Cisneros, Richard Martinez, George Munoz, Mary Kay Papen, Gabriel Ramos, Clemente Sanchez, and John Smith.
The outcome may be surprising given Democrats’ stranglehold on both chambers, but it probably shouldn’t be that surprising given the recent, massive shift in public opinion against abortion following the passage of an ultra-permissive abortion law in New York and an attempt to pass a similar law in Virginia.
To wit, this is the first time since 2009 “that as many or more Americans have identified as pro-life as have identified as pro-choice,” Axios reported in February, citing a Marist poll conducted after both New York and Virginia had introduced their super-lax abortion laws. Interestingly enough, the same polling firm found in January that 55 percent identified as pro-choice, while a smaller 38 percent identified as pro-life. That’s a 17-point shift in just one month. Even more interesting is that the survey found self-described Democratic respondents were primarily responsible for the change in attitudes.
Read into that what you will, but the data suggest a significant number of Democrats may actually believe their party has gone too far recently on abortion. At the very least, the data may signal that what we’re seeing now in places like New Mexico and Rhode Island is the inevitable distancing of Democratic politicians from an issue that is quickly becoming toxic for them and their entire party.
