New Mexico ranks in the top quarter of U.S. states when it comes to maintaining some of the nation’s least-restrictive abortion laws.
The United States since the 1973 Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade has given women the right to an abortion while leaving state lawmakers to decide how to regulate the practice.
The Land of Enchantment was ranked by NARAL Pro-Choice America nationally as the 12th best state in terms of having laws that protect reproductive rights in 2015. That organization gave New Mexico a grade of "A-minus" for its reproductive rights laws. New Mexico scored highly compared to the nationwide grade handed out by NARAL: "D."
One area in which New Mexico lacks restrictiveness is that it doesn’t require parental notification or consent for a minor to have an abortion,
according to the Guttmacher Institute. A law the state’s legislators approved requiring parental notice was ruled unenforceable by New Mexico’s attorney general,
according to the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life.
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New Mexico bans partial-birth abortions but that restriction applies only after the fetus has attained viability,
the Guttmacher Institute indicated.
AUL ranked New Mexico 40th nationally in terms of enacting anti-abortion legislation in the same year.
Reasons AUL gave as to why New Mexico ranked near the bottom of its Life List:
- New Mexico’s Supreme Court has concluded the state’s constitution provides a broader right to abortion than is provided by the U.S. Constitution.
- New Mexico provides court-ordered coverage to finance “medically necessary” abortions for women eligible for state medical public assistance.
- New Mexico “maintains no regulations mandating that abortion clinics meet minimum patient care standards.”
- New Mexico does not have an informed consent law. Informed consent laws allow for medical procedures to be undertaken only after the patient has been made aware of all the risks and consequences.
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