On the final complete day of the 2023 legislative session, the second important piece of reproductive and gender-affirming rights legislation passed the Property 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 Wellness Care Protection Act protects providers and individuals from other states’ efforts to subpoena for provider or patient data as portion of an investigation into reproductive or gender-affirming care exactly where that activity is not protected. The bill seeks to guard reproductive and gender-affirming care individuals and providers from civil or criminal liability and to guard reproductive healthcare providers from discrimination by specialist licensing boards.
SB 13 is 1 of two reproductive and gender-affirming rights bills introduced in this legislative session. The other bill, the Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Healthcare Act, prohibits public bodies from passing ordinances that would ban or place roadblocks in front of reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare. Lujan Grisham signed it into law on Thursday. She is anticipated to sign SB 13 into law as effectively.
The bill codifies Lujan Grisham’s executive order that she created final summer time inside days of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. If she indicators SB 13 bill, it would make certain that these protections will continue regardless of who is governor.
The 3-hour debate on the Property floor centered about other states’ rights as effectively difficulties about cost-free speech and the correct of religious organizations to protest or send electronic data about their disapproval of reproductive or gender-affirming care. Republican State Rep. Stefani Lord, of Sandia Park, asked if SB 13 is intended to be “an abortion shield law?”
State Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe, who presented the bill on the Property floor, stated “whatever you want to contact it, yes, we affirmatively guard what’s legal right here and will continue to be legal right here.”
“We’re a sovereign state we make our personal laws. We’re speaking about an overreach of jurisdiction in unchartered territory,” Romero stated of other states attempting to criminalize or penalize abortion or gender-affirming care in other states.
State Rep. Bill Rehm, R-Albuquerque, asked if New Mexico would cooperate with a subpoena issued from an additional state concerning a licensed reproductive or gender-affirming care provider.
Romero stated New Mexico would “not submit private data about that practice for an additional state looking for it.”
State Rep. Greg Nibert, R-Roswell, named the legislation a “carve out from our common notions of complete faith and credit” to respond to legal orders from other states.
Romero stated that reproductive and gender-affirming care is “being attacked in other states.”
State Rep. John Block, R-Alamogordo, asked what are the “specific attacks on New Mexico that have gone on that is creating this a priority?”
Romero stated other states, mostly Texas, are passing legislation that criminalizes and enables civil penalties against reproductive and gender-affirming care providers and these looking for the care, as effectively as these who support folks looking for care. Romero stated there have been extra than 400 pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation introduced this year, so far, and 15 states are restricting or thinking about restricting gender-affirming care access.
“That’s precisely why we will need this law,” Romero stated.
State Rep. Rod Montoya, R-Farmington, attempted to argue that the legislation impinges on the correct to cost-free speech. Romero disagreed.
“It is about private healthcare data. It is narrowly drafted in this law. We do not touch on cost-free speech, we’re defending healthcare data,” Romero stated.
Montoya introduced two amendments to the bill. The initial would have struck a section that he stated would retain folks or entities from legally protesting or sharing electronic data that is adverse towards a reproductive or gender-affirming provider or clinic.
That amendment by no means received a vote. Property Speaker Javier Martinez, D-Albuquerque, stated Montoya was out of order and referred him to the guidelines of the Property but did not elaborate.
The Property debated Montoya’s amendment for various minutes just before he withdrew it and created a second try to amend the bill by striking the word “entity,” due to the fact he stated the correct of religious organizations or folks “to say unflattering factors about procedures they discover morally reprehensible” was becoming impacted.
Romero named the amendment “very unfriendly” and stated this amendment “would let for harassment.”
The debate on the amendment went more than the 3-hour debate limit on the Property floor, major to a disagreement among Montoya and Martinez more than Montoya’s capability to make closing remarks. Martinez stated the Property had closed debate, was more than the 3-hour debate limit and that his time had run out.
The Property tabled the amendment by 43-24 vote.