A New Mexico House committee voted Wednesday to advance a pro-abortion bill that could force teachers and school nurses to help students get secret abortions without their parents’ knowledge.
Despite growing public opposition, the state House Judiciary Committee voted 7-4 along party lines to move state House Bill 7 forward to the full House.
Sponsored by state Rep. Linda Serrato, D-Santa Fe, the bill is supposed to protect “access to reproductive and gender-affirming health care” in New Mexico by prohibiting school boards, city councils and other local governments from discriminating against people based on their “reproductive” choices.
Serrato said her bill will to help New Mexicans access health care, especially in rural parts of the state.
“As we know, health care in New Mexico can be hard to find, hard to reach,” Serrato said. “This bill ensures we’re not adding fear on top of that.”
But Elisa Martinez, executive director of the New Mexico Alliance for Life, said the legislation essentially would create an abortion compliance mandate for teachers and other public employees.
“Ideologically driven legislation like this has exact opposite affect to what the sponsors proclaim, as it is a mandate on behavior to refer or participate in abortions and transgender procedures for every public employee,” Martinez responded in an email after the vote.
Testifying Wednesday before the committee, she told lawmakers that the bill is dangerous and irresponsible, and New Mexicans oppose it. In the past few weeks, she said her organization has received more than 5,000 petitions from residents in opposition to the bill.
ACTION ALERT: To oppose the bill, please Contact New Mexico lawmakers.
“HB 7 redefines the meaning of discrimination in the most broadest and irresponsible terms to proclaim anyone who opposes cross-sex hormones or surgery or abortion is in violation of the act and thereby their employer is ripe for penalty,” she said.
Last week, state Rep. Jenifer Jones, R-Deming, said she also has received an “overwhelming response” from constituents in opposition to the bill, the Albuquerque Journal reports.
Addressing concerns, Ellie Rushforth, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, contended that the bill would not force teachers to help students get abortions, the report continues.
“What this bill does not do is create an affirmative duty to provide health care they do not already provide or they do not feel comfortable providing,” Rushforth said last week during a legislative hearing. “It doesn’t change medical care standards, clinical guidelines, anything of that nature.”
But New Mexico Alliance for Life pointed to language in the bill that prohibits any public institution that receives taxpayer funding and its employees from interfering with or denying a person’s access to abortion. Institutions that violate the legislation could face penalties of up to $5,000.
In other words, a public school teacher could be required to help facilitate a secret abortion for a student “despite the best interest of the child” and even if they believe abortion is wrong, according to the pro-life organization.
Pro-life advocates and lawmakers said the bill also jeopardizes conscience protections, religious freedom and free speech.
“As a parent and practicing physician, I am deeply concerned about HB 7 forcing teachers and public employees to facilitate elective procedures – despite the best interest of our children,” said state Sen. Gregg Schmedes, R-Bernalillo, a medical doctor, in a statement last week. “There are negative impacts to the mental, physical and emotional health of any elective procedure and HB 7 completely ignores the actual science.”
Democrats control the New Mexico legislature, and state laws allow unborn babies to be aborted for any reason up to birth.
Recently, local governments in conservative parts of the state have been passing ordinances to protect unborn babies from abortion and prevent abortion businesses from opening there. These ordinances have angered pro-abortion Democrat leaders, and House Bill 7 is one of their efforts to try to stop local pro-life efforts.
Martinez of the New Mexico Alliance for Life said the bill would take power out of the hands of local citizens and give it to already powerful bureaucrats to “force compliance for these elective procedures.”
Not only would the bill seek to force every taxpayer-funded institution to facilitate abortions and transgender surgeries, it also would ban any effort by local lawmaking bodies from addressing these issues, she said, quoting the bill, which states, “a public body or agent of a public body shall not impose or continue in effect any law, ordinance, policy or regulation that violates or conflicts with the provisions” set forth in the bill.
The pro-life organization urged state residents to contact their lawmakers and sign a petition against the bill.
ACTION ALERT: To oppose the bill, please Contact New Mexico lawmakers.
