New Mexico Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the chairwoman of the national Democrat gubernatorial group the Democrat Governors Association (DGA) and a vulnerable Democrat up for reelection this year, is singing two different tunes when it comes to radical late-term abortions in her state, depending on the audience.
On CNN this week after she signed an executive order promoting abortion in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, Lujan Grisham told host Jake Tapper that in her New Mexico “there are no restrictions” on abortion:
Given that we interpret, and I agree that the pre-this new Supreme Court decision and Roe v. Wade is that this is a privacy right and that this is a personal decision between a woman and her doctor. To interfere in any of these, and it has, right, creates an unknown, untold reductions in civil liberties for any number of individuals including women’s access to contraceptives and other safe-sex protective measures like the morning-after pill or Plan B. Here, we would love to do as much as we can to focus on maternal health and pre-natal health to make sure we have fewer and fewer and fewer and eliminate all unwanted pregnancies. However, in these late-term abortion issues, these are women who have picked a name, have enrolled in childcare, have a nursery. The kind of medical issues and deeply private personal traumas that are occurring in those aspects, I don’t believe government has any right to interfere and judge those decisions when two medical providers are providing that information directly to their patient. But we are also a state that would like to do more to prevent unwanted pregnancies and to prevent the kind of violence that can result in a pregnancy and those are things that I’d like to see not just New Mexico but the American people focus on in the same context as protecting our civil liberties.
Technically speaking, she is correct in this interview in saying there are no restrictions on abortion in New Mexico. One abortion clinic in Albuquerque, for instance, advertises on its website abortions without question through 32 weeks of pregnancy—eight months into a pregnancy—and after that abortion until birth in what it calls “Late Term Abortions After 32 Weeks on a Case by Case Basis.”
That means, under Democrat control in New Mexico with the Lujan Grisham administration, yes, women who are about to give birth can abort their babies–even those who have already picked a name for their unborn child, have enrolled in childcare, have a nursery put together, et cetera.
That is why it was particularly interesting to see Lujan Grisham at a press conference in Santa Fe singing a different tune when talking to local news outlets in New Mexico, trying to make herself sound more moderate on the issue:
On the late-term abortion question, that is a very personal, difficult set of circumstances. The fact that because we have this debate politically leaves any New Mexican or any American that thinks that any pregnancy is terminated in the last trimester because someone just shows up at a clinic is untrue and illegal.
Again, her comments at the local news conference are just untrue. As the website of Southwestern Women’s Options Abortion Clinic in Albuquerque states clearly, that organization will perform abortions without question through 32 weeks—and after 32 weeks on “case by case basis”—well into the third trimester.
“It’s evident that it’s an election year and MLG is worried about losing support especially among Hispanics, moderates, and conservative Democrats,” Elisa Martinez, the founder of the pro-life group New Mexico Alliance for Life and a statehouse candidate, told Breitbart News when asked why she would say one thing to one audience and another to another. “Voters are moving from those demographics to Republicans because of this very kind of extremism we’re seeing from Democrats, which is why MLG is trying to walk back her radical law of the land that she legalized and fought for in 2021.”
This extreme position, where she is nationally backing abortion without restriction all the way through to the end of pregnancy, which her state currently allows, could also prove problematic for other Democrats nationally. As the chairwoman of the DGA, any Democrat governor or candidate for governor in any other state nationwide that associates with the DGA—takes money from the organization, accepts staff or other help like polling or voter data and more, or appears with Lujan Grisham at any events or appears with Democrat surrogates at any events organized by the DGA—could easily be tied politically to the infanticide currently playing out in New Mexico.
Lujan Grisham faces Republican Mark Ronchetti in November’s gubernatorial election in New Mexico.