On Wednesday, the New Mexico House Health Committee heard the House version of a radical abortion up-to-birth and infanticide bill, H.B. 7, that would strip away critical life-saving protections for babies in the womb, women, and health care professionals.
“This bill does not address current practice or availability of abortion. It’s a repeal of an antiquated 1969 law,” the bill sponsor, Rep. Deb Armstrong (D-Bernalillo), said of her bill. Other sponsors and “experts” repeatedly used the term “antiquated” to describe the life-saving current law on the books.
Rep. Stefani Lord (R-Bernalillo, Sandoval, and Santa Fe) noted how her office received over 6,000 calls from constituents, most of them asking her to vote against the radical anti-life bill.
During the testimony part of the hearing, a labor and delivery nurse said, “I’ve held pre-mature babies and I can tell you they are very much alive.”
Rep. Phelps Anderson (R-Chaves, Lea, and Roosevelt) said during his time to speak, “It is of my belief that if this bill passes, nothing changes,” which the bill’s co-sponsor, Rep. Ferrary agreed with him on, despite the bill’s passage ripping critical protections away from multiple groups.
He then added the following:
“If nothing changes, why then did I in the last 24 to 48 hours receive literally thousands of forms of communication, largely urging a ‘no’ vote, but there were… there were… messages urging votes both ways. And I think, well… I read some of them and I think ‘well, this person is in for [a] disappointment because they’re urging a vote that is not going to affect what it is that concerns them in this message’ and that has given me a great deal of consternation about your bill, not because I—I’m just sort of thinking ‘what is it—what are we doing?’ Do we really have a bill here that really doesn’t do anything? Why not? Why not, Representative Ferrary?”
“Because in my opinion, Roe v. Wade made the 1969 New Mexico abortion law unconstitutional. So I think, ‘Okay, Representative Ferrary wants to repeal an unconstitutional law passed in the State of New Mexico fifty-two years ago more or less.’ And I find myself trying to say, ‘Now what part of that do I disagree with?’ I’m pro-life. I don’t—of many of the people who have spoken to me in the last day or two have expressed strong opinions and many of which I share. But I find myself at the end of this debate long day saying ‘I’m not sure that…voting yes or voting no changes anything—and that is very important to me in this vote—and secondly, I think the issues that have been raised are simply not encompassed within this vote.”
“So, with that, Representative Ferrary, I wanted to say the one thing that I appreciate your comment because the one thing I have heard today that I do think might change based on testimony is the conscience clause, and that will make a difference in how I vote on the House floor if I go and believe that the conscience clause is not—is being removed. And I kinda think that I believe right now that that’s not what this repeal is doing, but I will—but we will see this bill again. With that, thank you, madame chairman, thank you Representative Ferrary.”
After testimony from the public and questioning the bill sponsors, who refused to say their bill would legalize abortion up to birth, the measure came up for a vote. After stalling for a while, supposed “pro-life” Rep. Phelps Anderson (R-) voted with all the radical Democrats on the committee in favor of the abortion up-to-birth and infanticide bill. The measure ultimately passed on a vote of 8-3. The bill now goes to the House Judiciary Committee for consideration.
The betrayal by Anderson is a revelation of the pro-abortion “Republicans” hiding in the shadows in the New Mexico Legislature, who are slowly revealing what side they truly are on. Find Rep. Anderson’s contact information here.
He must be primaried out of office
Your Job is History. RINO
How can murder be legal?
Hold on! I am against abortion. Unfortunately, Roe v Wade makes the current NM statute unenforceable because it bans all abortions. Roe allows states to regulate abortion after viability of the fetus (unborn baby) which has been looked upon as 20 weeks in the womb but prohibits pre-viability regulation.
So, the current statute is unfortunately not life-saving at all because it cannot be enforced – it has not saved a single life since Roe. I don’t know that it’s fair to criticize Rep. Anderson the removal of a statute that is wholly unenforceable.
Instead, we should be pushing and working hard for the enactment of a statute that limits abortions in accordance with the current law. Otherwise, we will remain an abortion on demand til birth state, as we have been for years. This will require lots of hard work, including working on our democrat legislators and governor, and getting more people to vote pro-life rather than sniping at our own. Just shouting “primary him” is not an effective way to curb and hopefully in the long-run end abortion here.
After reading the bill and the existing statutes again, I do think there is a huge problem in repealing Section 30-5-2, which allows practitioners to refuse to participate in abortions. That section would seem to still be permissible under Roe.