New Mexico governor signs bill protecting access to reproductive and gender-affirming care into law

New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Thursday signed into regulation a invoice that prohibits native municipalities and different public our bodies from inferring with an individual’s skill to entry reproductive or gender-affirming well being care companies.

HB7, the Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Well being Care Freedom Act, additionally prohibits any public physique from imposing legal guidelines, ordinances, insurance policies or laws that forestall sufferers from receiving reproductive or gender-affirming care.

The transfer comes within the wake of the reversal of federal abortion rights final yr and as a number of states have enacted measures to forestall minors from accessing gender-affirming care.

Gender-affirming care is medically vital, evidence-based care that makes use of a multidisciplinary strategy to assist an individual transition from their assigned gender – the one the particular person was designated at delivery – to their affirmed gender – the gender by which one needs to be identified.

“New Mexicans in each nook of our state deserve protections for his or her bodily autonomy and proper to well being care,” Lujan Grisham mentioned in a media launch. “I’m grateful for the onerous work of the Legislature and group companions in getting this crucial laws throughout the end line.”

Every violation of the regulation can lead to a positive of $5,000 or damages, if the quantity is larger, based on the invoice.

The regulation follows ordinances that a number of municipalities within the state had beforehand handed associated to abortion care entry after the Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade final summer season.

Whereas abortion is authorized in New Mexico, a number of GOP-led states have launched or enacted measures proscribing abortion, together with Texas and Oklahoma, which have banned the process in any respect levels of being pregnant with restricted exceptions. In response, New Mexico, which neighbors each states, allotted $10 million to construct a brand new abortion clinic close to the Texas border.

A number of different Democratic-controlled states have moved to reaffirm reproductive care in response to the Supreme Court docket’s landmark ruling.

Minnesota’s Democratic governor signed a invoice into regulation earlier this yr that enshrined the “elementary proper” to entry abortion within the state. Final yr, California handed a number of payments increasing abortion entry, together with protections for abortion suppliers and sufferers looking for abortion care within the state from civil motion began in one other state.

As states transfer to enact measures, new authorized challenges may additional complicate abortion entry in a post-Roe America.

A federal courtroom in Texas heard arguments this week to dam the US Meals and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, one of many two medication utilized in a drugs abortion, which made up greater than half of US abortions in 2020, based on the Guttmacher Institute. Although the Trump-appointed choose has not issued a ruling, he advised throughout arguments that he’s significantly contemplating undoing the FDA’s approval.

Additionally in danger is entry to gender-affirming look after trans youth, which LGBTQ advocates have lengthy pressured is life-saving well being care.

To this point this yr, lawmakers in Tennessee, Mississippi, Utah and South Dakota have enacted laws to limit minors’ entry to such care.

Moreover, greater than 80 payments looking for to limit entry to gender-affirming care have been launched across the nation by way of early final month, based on knowledge compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union and shared with CNN.