In recent years, New Mexico has quietly emerged as a progressive health-care sanctuary in the Southwest. Since the Dobbs decision, the number of abortion clinics in New Mexico has more than doubled, as clinics that were forced to close their doors elsewhere have reopened in the state, which has no gestational limits on abortion. More than ten thousand women have travelled there to receive abortion care. New Mexico is “taking on the burden for women who don’t have these protections in places like Texas and Oklahoma and Nevada and Utah,” Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham told me.
The state also has among the strongest protections in the Southwest for gender-affirming care for both adults and minors. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance limiting the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine to certain populations, New Mexico’s Department of Health promptly ordered pharmacies to make the vaccine available to anyone who wanted it. This November, New Mexico will become the first state to offer universal free child care to all residents, regardless of income—an initiative that Lujan Grisham has spoken about as being part of a broader attempt to improve the health of New Mexicans.
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