State of New Mexico v. Board of County Commissioners for Lea County
Description: The New Mexico attorney general bypassed ordinary litigation procedures and deployed an exceptional measure, an emergency petition, when he asked the state’s high court to find a new constitutional right to abortion without the benefit of any court’s prior review or full briefing.
ADF to NM Supreme Court: Protect women, unborn children
WHO: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys
WHAT: Available for media interviews following oral arguments in State of New Mexico v. Board of County Commissioners for Lea County
WHEN: Immediately following hearing, which begins at 9:30 a.m. MST, Wednesday, Dec. 13
WHERE: New Mexico Supreme Court, 237 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe, or view the livestream. To schedule an interview, contact ADF Media Relations Specialist Hattie Troutman at (771) 200-7630.
SANTA FE, N.M. – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys will be available for media interviews following oral arguments Wednesday at the New Mexico Supreme Court in State of New Mexico v. Board of County Commissioners for Lea County. ADF attorneys are representing the Roosevelt County Board of Commissioners and three pro-life organizations in the state.
ADF is asking the New Mexico Supreme Court to safeguard maternal health and unborn lives by refusing to find a never-before-recognized, so-called “right” to abortion in the state’s constitution.
“State and local governments have the strongest interest in protecting the most fundamental of our human rights—the right to life—and it’s clear the New Mexico Constitution does not contain a right to take innocent, unborn life,” said ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley, vice president of the ADF Center for Life and Center for Regulatory Practice, who will be arguing before the court. “Government officials like the attorney general of New Mexico do not have the power to bypass ordinary legal processes to further their political agenda. We urge the court to allow Roosevelt County and other New Mexico localities to enforce ordinances that comply with federal law and protect the lives of children and mothers.”
Late last year and earlier this year, Roosevelt County and three other New Mexico localities enacted ordinances seeking to protect women and unborn children by complying with federal law that prohibits the mailing of dangerous chemical abortion drugs. In response, the New Mexico attorney general bypassed ordinary procedures and went directly to the New Mexico Supreme Court, asking the state’s high court to find a new constitutional right to abortion without the benefit of any court’s prior review.
In February, ADF attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the New Mexico Supreme Court in the case on behalf of three pro-life organizations: New Mexico Family Action Movement, Right to Life Committee of New Mexico, and New Mexico Alliance for Life. Roosevelt County subsequently retained ADF attorneys to represent the county in the case.
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
# # #
Previous News Releases
Legal Documents
Related Resources
ABOUT Erin Morrow Hawley
Erin Morrow Hawley serves as senior counsel and vice president of the Center for Life and regulatory practice at Alliance Defending Freedom. Before joining ADF, Hawley practiced appellate law at Kirkland and Ellis LLP, Bancroft LLP, and King & Spalding LLP. Hawley has litigated extensively before the U.S. Supreme Court as well as numerous federal courts of appeals and state courts of last resort. She also worked at the U.S. Department of Justice, serving as counsel to Attorney General Michael Mukasey. As an academic, Hawley served as an associate professor of law at the University of Missouri and she also taught constitutional law as a senior fellow at the Kinder Institute for Constitutional Democracy. Hawley is a former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. Hawley received her bachelor’s degree in Animal Science from Texas A&M University and her law degree from Yale Law School where she served as a Coker Fellow in Constitutional Law and on the Yale Law Journal. She is an active member of the Missouri and District of Columbia bars and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and various federal courts of appeals.