By Andrew Hay
(Reuters) – New Mexico’s governor on Wednesday earmarked $10 million in public funds for a reproductive healthcare clinic to meet an expected rise in demand for abortions from women traveling from neighboring states that have banned the procedure.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed an executive order for the clinic to be built in southern New Mexico’s Doña Ana County bordering Texas, where abortion has been outlawed since the U.S. Supreme Court in June ended the nationwide constitutional right to the procedure.
Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, said she expected the clinic to be located in the area of Las Cruces, New Mexico’s second- largest city. It ultimately could be operated by public or private service providers, including those relocating from states where abortion has been banned.
Eleven states have begun enforcing near-total abortion bans since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision providing a constitutional right to the procedure.
“These efforts to restrict access to reproductive health services from other states may lead more individuals to seek services from New Mexico healthcare providers,” Lujan Grisham said in a video call on her executive order. “We must work to protect and expand the availability of these services to address the demands on our system.”
New Mexico is the only state neighboring Texas where abortion remains legal. As one of the poorest U.S. states, it lacks sufficient reproductive healthcare services for its own residents and is now caring for women traveling from as far away as Louisiana.
New clinics are also arriving. Whole Woman’s Health in July said it would close its Texas clinics and move operations to New Mexico. The Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Mississippi abortion clinic at the center of the Supreme Court case, has moved to Las Cruces.
Lujan Grisham in June signed an executive order to offer legal protection to abortion providers.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, N.M.; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
