The town of Edgewood became the fourth in New Mexico to pass a Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance to protect unborn babies in a 4-1 vote early Wednesday.
Public testimony lasted for hours and took the Tuesday night meeting into early Wednesday morning, said Mark Lee Dickson, a director with Right to Life of East Texas and the founder of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn initiative. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports the majority spoke in support of the pro-life ordinance.
Edgewood is the fourth city in the state and the 66th in the nation to pass a Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance to protect unborn babies.
Unlike similar ordinances in other states, the ones in New Mexico do not outlaw abortion directly. Instead, they protect unborn babies by requiring compliance with federal statutes – specifically the Comstock Act (18 U.S.C. §§ 1461–1462), which prohibits the mailing and receiving of abortion-inducing drugs and abortion paraphernalia. The Edgewood ordinance also allows private citizens to file civil lawsuits against abortionists who violate the prohibition.
Edgewood is a small town near Albuquerque where there are many abortion facilities.
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New Mexico allows unborn babies to be aborted for any reason up to birth, and state Democrat lawmakers have been working aggressively to expand abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Gov. Michelle Grisham recently promised to spend $10 million of taxpayer’s money to build a new abortion facility near the Texas border. Texas laws protect unborn babies from abortion.
In Edgewood, a majority of the public comments from local residents Tuesday night supported the ordinance, according to the newspaper.
“This is a battle between good and evil,” local resident David Garcia told the town council.
Another resident, Joyce Johnson, reminded her community that abortions kill unborn babies with beating hearts.
“A beating heart is stopped every single time an abortion is made,” Johnson said. “Would you like to have been aborted at birth?”
Those who objected to the ordinance brought up concerns about legal challenges and claimed the town should not “legislate other people’s lives and health care,” the report continues.
Many rural communities in New Mexico support legal protections for babies in the womb, and four cities and two counties in the state now have Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinances.
The City of Hobbs passed the first ordinance after local pro-lifers learned that the Whole Women’s Health abortion chain wanted to move there from Texas. After the ordinance passed, the abortion chain abandoned its plans and decided to open in Albuquerque instead.
More recently, however, a state court blocked the Hobbs ordinance and similar measures passed by the city of Clovis and counties of Lea and Roosevelt. The court decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by the governor and state Attorney General Raul Torrez.
Meanwhile, another city, Eunice, which also passed a Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance, filed its own lawsuit last week challenging the governor’s efforts to stop local governments from protecting unborn babies from abortion by requiring compliance with federal law.
“Abortion is not a savior. Abortion is a destroyer,” Eunice city councilwoman Erica Jones said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “Today is for all of the children in America: the born and the unborn. They too deserve to be loved, cared for and protected.”
Other cities across the country also are considering ordinances to protect unborn babies from abortion this spring.
A growing grassroots movement is working to protect unborn babies at the local level. To-date, 66 cities in Texas, Ohio, Nebraska, Louisiana, Iowa and New Mexico have passed Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinances that protect unborn babies by banning or restricting abortions and/or abortion facilities within city limits.
Other cities and counties have passed pro-life resolutions, which are statements of support but not enforceable law, that recognize unborn babies’ right to life. In Arkansas, at least 19 counties and 10 cities and towns have passed pro-life resolutions, according to Family Council of Arkansas. Several North Carolina counties passed pro-life resolutions, too, and the New Mexico county commissioners of Otero approved a resolution in July condemning the pro-abortion laws in their state.
