Laws in at least one dozen states and Washington, D.C., have kept abortion rights protections in place, even in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and leaving the decision to allow or block abortion services to individual states. Those acting as safe havens include California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, according to TIME Magazine.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham joined the governors of Minnesota and Massachusetts Monday in signing executive orders to protect medical providers from any effort to retaliate against them for providing abortions. Grisham had already repealed legislation last year that would have criminalized abortions when Roe v. Wade was effectively repealed.
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“Today we have once again declared that we will take every available action to protect the rights and access to health care of anyone in New Mexico,” Grisham said in a news release on Monday. “As long as I am governor, abortion will continue to be legal, safe, and accessible in New Mexico.”
Grisham said any added directives would come from legislators in January, according to the news nonprofit Source New Mexico. The state's legislative session ended in February.
“I’m certainly going to defer to the policymaker in the room,” the governor said. “But I would say because abortion is legal in the state of New Mexico, we don’t need to do something before the 60-day session. But we’re going to have to wait and see what other surprises are potentially in store from the Supreme Court.”
The pro-abortion policy organization Guttmacher Institute routinely updates its list of abortion policies in effect in each state. "With #RoeVWade overturned by anti-abortion justices on the Supreme Court, access is being decimated across the US," the institute tweeted on Tuesday.
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The list of states where abortion rights are protected changes day to day, but leaders in some states have remained persistent in their promises to protect those seeking abortion services. California is one of those states. Golden State lawmakers added a constitutional amendment to the ballot in November to protect abortion rights, The New York Times reported.
Gov. Gavin Newsom also signed a bill on Friday to protect abortion providers in the state from retaliation stemming from providing abortions to out-of-state travelers.
“California will not back down from the fight to protect abortion rights as more than half the states in this country, enabled by the Supreme Court, ban or severely restrict access,” Newsom said in a news release on Monday. “We are ensuring Californians will have the opportunity this November to enshrine the right to choose in our state constitution. And we’re not waiting until November to take action; today’s executive order ensures that the state will not hand over patients who come here to receive care and will not extradite doctors who provide care to out-of-state patients here. In California, women will remain protected.”
Newsom joined the governors of Oregon and Washington on Friday to form a "firewall" of abortion rights protections, The New York Times reported. Newsom, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee released a document laying out exactly how they would work together to protect abortion rights.
Read the full Multi-State Commitment to Reproductive Freedom:
The leaders committed to protect those seeking abortion services from states working to criminalize them, refuse non-fugitive extradition for receiving reproductive health care services deemed legal in their states, and defend against the misuse of medical records to criminalize patients seeking reproductive health care in their states.
Officials stated in the document:
“Emboldened by the U.S. Supreme Court’s leaked and now final decision, antichoice states are considering legislation to extend the effect of their laws outside their own territorial borders. They seek to criminalize patients who travel to other states where abortion healthcare is legal, as well as the health care providers offering services and anyone else who helps patients access that care. Other states are considering bans on contraception, including IUDs and morning-after pills. Even more crackdowns on reproductive freedom are certain to follow. We will not stand on the sidelines as these attacks mount.”
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