The department also has job openings for more faculty to perform abortions. The University of New Mexico clinic has been asked to join referral networks for OB-GYN doctors across the country whose patients must terminate their pregnancies for medical reasons but cannot legally do so locally. The logistics of accessing abortion are about to get more complicated, with at least 26 states set to ban the procedure after the fall of Roe vs. World & Nation Where is abortion legal? In red states, women navigate a chaotic landscape The influx will challenge the state’s capacity to meet demand. Given the 2021 passage in the adjacent state of Texas of Senate Bill 8, known as the Texas Heartbeat Act, and the Supreme Court ruling, experts estimate the state’s figures for 20 to increase wildly. More than 5,800 abortions were provided in New Mexico in 2020, the most recent year available, an increase of 32% from 2019. Many New Mexican women who seek abortions travel from their small towns to urban centers, where they will now compete with rising numbers of women from out of state. The state has no gestational limits or waiting periods for abortions, and it does not require parental consent for minors who want to undergo the procedure.

New Mexico is something of an anomaly: 49% Hispanic and Latino, largely rural, traditionally Catholic and yet reliably blue, including a friendliness toward LGBTQ communities. As many states, most controlled by Republican legislatures, have restricted access over the years, New Mexico and others, including Colorado and Illinois, have become safe if at times tense havens for those seeking to end their pregnancies. The court’s ruling is drawing this state deeper into a intensifying culture war that has shaped American politics and challenged a woman’s right to abortion for decades. “This ripples far beyond New Mexico, and they’re going to be coming to us.”

Lisa Hofler, the clinical vice chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of New Mexico. “Oh, my gosh, the magnitude for us is going to be tremendous,” said Dr. Wade ruling, has New Mexico’s abortion providers bracing for a new influx of patients from conservative states. But the Supreme Court’s ruling Friday on a Mississippi law to ban most abortions after 15 weeks, reversing the landmark 1973 Roe vs. New Mexico, one of six states that allow late-term abortions, has for years been overwhelmed by travelers from swaths of the country where the procedure is forbidden.

They had driven here - others arrive by plane and Greyhound bus - like many before them. She walked past four security cameras, around a wrought-iron fence and through a double-deadbolt door. In another, a pregnant woman handed an infant to her partner and climbed out into the dry 103-degree heat. In one car, a young man in a Nirvana T-shirt rubbed his palms together and stared off into the sky. Pillows and blankets were scattered across backseats to ease the journey home, which for most would come by day’s end. Two from Oklahoma, and others from Arizona, Louisiana and Iowa. The parking lot to the abortion clinic in this desert city was crowded recently with cars from out of state: four from Texas.

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