On the ultimate full day of the 2023 legislative session, the second main piece of reproductive and gender-affirming rights laws handed the Home by a 38-30 vote.
SB 13, sponsored by state Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, now heads to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s desk.
The Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Well being Care Safety Act protects suppliers and sufferers from different states’ efforts to subpoena for supplier or affected person info as a part of an investigation into reproductive or gender-affirming care the place that exercise shouldn’t be protected. The invoice seeks to guard reproductive and gender-affirming care sufferers and suppliers from civil or felony legal responsibility and to guard reproductive healthcare suppliers from discrimination by skilled licensing boards.
SB 13 is considered one of two reproductive and gender-affirming rights payments launched on this legislative session. The opposite invoice, the Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Healthcare Act, prohibits public our bodies from passing ordinances that will ban or put roadblocks in entrance of reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare. Lujan Grisham signed it into legislation on Thursday. She is predicted to signal SB 13 into legislation as effectively.
The invoice codifies Lujan Grisham’s government order that she made final summer season inside days of the U.S. Supreme Courtroom overturning Roe v. Wade. If she indicators SB 13 invoice, it will be certain that these protections will proceed no matter who’s governor.
The three-hour debate on the Home flooring centered round different states’ rights as effectively points round free speech and the proper of non secular organizations to protest or ship digital details about their disapproval of reproductive or gender-affirming care. Republican State Rep. Stefani Lord, of Sandia Park, requested if SB 13 is meant to be “an abortion protect legislation?”
State Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe, who offered the invoice on the Home flooring, stated “no matter you wish to name it, sure, we affirmatively defend what’s authorized right here and can proceed to be authorized right here.”
“We’re a sovereign state; we make our personal legal guidelines. We’re speaking about an overreach of jurisdiction in unchartered territory,” Romero stated of different states making an attempt to criminalize or penalize abortion or gender-affirming care in different states.
State Rep. Invoice Rehm, R-Albuquerque, requested if New Mexico would cooperate with a subpoena issued from one other state concerning a licensed reproductive or gender-affirming care supplier.
Romero stated New Mexico would “not submit personal details about that apply for an additional state searching for it.”
State Rep. Greg Nibert, R-Roswell, referred to as the laws a “carve out from our common notions of full religion and credit score” to answer authorized orders from different states.
Romero stated that reproductive and gender-affirming care is “being attacked in different states.”
State Rep. John Block, R-Alamogordo, requested what are the “particular assaults on New Mexico which have gone on that’s making this a precedence?”
Romero stated different states, primarily Texas, are passing laws that criminalizes and permits civil penalties towards reproductive and gender-affirming care suppliers and people searching for the care, in addition to those that assist people searching for care. Romero stated there have been greater than 400 items of anti-LGBTQ laws launched this yr, up to now, and 15 states are limiting or contemplating limiting gender-affirming care entry.
“That’s exactly why we’d like this legislation,” Romero stated.
State Rep. Rod Montoya, R-Farmington, tried to argue that the laws impinges on the proper to free speech. Romero disagreed.
“It’s about personal healthcare info. It’s narrowly drafted on this legislation. We don’t contact on free speech, we’re defending healthcare info,” Romero stated.
Montoya launched two amendments to the invoice. The primary would have struck a piece that he stated would maintain people or entities from legally protesting or sharing digital info that’s adverse in the direction of a reproductive or gender-affirming supplier or clinic.
That modification by no means obtained a vote. Home Speaker Javier Martinez, D-Albuquerque, stated Montoya was out of order and referred him to the foundations of the Home however didn’t elaborate.
The Home debated Montoya’s modification for a number of minutes earlier than he withdrew it and made a second try and amend the invoice by putting the phrase “entity,” as a result of he stated the proper of non secular organizations or people “to say unflattering issues about procedures they discover morally reprehensible” was being impacted.
Romero referred to as the modification “very unfriendly” and stated this modification “would permit for harassment.”
The controversy on the modification went over the three-hour debate restrict on the Home flooring, resulting in a disagreement between Montoya and Martinez over Montoya’s means to make closing remarks. Martinez stated the Home had closed debate, was over the three-hour debate restrict and that his time had run out.
The Home tabled the modification by 43-24 vote.