{"id":39376,"date":"2022-07-20T14:27:19","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T20:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/crowd-protests-relocation-of-abortion-clinic-to-new-mexico\/"},"modified":"2022-07-20T20:27:19","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T20:27:19","slug":"crowd-protests-relocation-of-abortion-clinic-to-new-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/crowd-protests-relocation-of-abortion-clinic-to-new-mexico\/","title":{"rendered":"Crowd protests relocation of abortion clinic to New Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Anti-abortion
Anti-abortion advocates listen to various speakers during the Emergency Pro-Life Rally for New Mexico in Las Cruces, N.M., on Tuesday. Anti-abortion activists from across the country converged in southern New Mexico on Tuesday to protest relocation plans by the Mississippi clinic at the center of the court battle that overturned Roe v. Wade. (Meg Potter\/The Las Cruces Sun News via AP)<\/span>Meg Potter<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LAS CRUCES, N.M. \u2013 Anti-abortion activists from across the U.S. converged in southern New Mexico on Tuesday to protest relocation plans by the Mississippi clinic at the center of the court battle that overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide<\/a>, but New Mexico\u2019s governor vowed not to back down from her support for access to abortions.<\/p>\n

Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is running for re-election, tweeted hours before the protest that access remains legal and safe in her state.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Mexicans understand the right to make personal decisions about one\u2019s own reproductive health care \u2013 and we won\u2019t go back,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

The crowd gathered in triple-digit temperatures in the southern city of Las Cruces, near the location where Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization plans to open its new clinic next week.<\/p>\n

Some held signs that read \u201cPray to End Abortion\u201d and \u201cVote Your Values.\u201d They heard from the leader of a local Catholic parish, a university student group and activists from Texas and Mississippi who talked about their experiences shutting down abortion clinics elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Terri Herring, president of Mississippi-based group Choose Life, told the crowd about more than two dozen pregnancy centers in her state that have helped mothers who were considering abortion but opted to have their babies instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to make this a refuge for women and their children,\u201d she said of New Mexico, before organizers of the rally announced they would open a Guiding Star Project clinic next door to the planned abortion clinic. The facility will provide fertility care, pregnancy and childbirth support services as alternatives to the abortions planned for the former Mississippi clinic next door.<\/p>\n

\"An
An anti-abortion advocate along with abortion rights advocates hold up signs during the Emergency Pro-Life Rally for New Mexico in Las Cruces, N.M., on Tuesday. (Meg Potter\/The Las Cruces Sun News via AP)<\/span>Meg Potter<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Leah Jacobson, founder and CEO of The Guiding Star Project, told the crowd that the root causes of what is driving women to abortion need to be addressed and that a culture shift is needed to counter what she described as a loss of \u201cbodily autonomy through devices, pills, drugs and surgeries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we love life, if we want to protect women and children, we need to understand that there is something fundamentally broken about how we are treating motherhood in our culture,\u201d she said, pointing to the lack of maternity leave or breastfeeding spaces, among other challenges. \u201cHow about we actually take the needs of women into consideration?\u201d<\/p>\n

New Mexico\u2019s Democratic-controlled Legislature supports access, and state lawmakers last year repealed a dormant 1969 law that outlawed most abortion procedures as felonies, ensuring access to abortion even after the Supreme Court rolled back the national guarantee.<\/p>\n

Preparations are well underway for the new abortion clinic, with furniture and equipment from Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization moved from Mississippi, and it is due to open soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to tie up loose ends,\u201d Diane Derzis, owner of Las Cruces Women\u2019s Health Organization, told The Associated Press on Monday.<\/p>\n

Derzis said Tuesday\u2019s demonstration against the abortion clinic didn\u2019t bother her because protests have gone for years at other clinics she has owned in Mississippi and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a big deal,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s life at an abortion clinic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anti-abortion advocates listen to various speakers during the Emergency Pro-Life Rally for New Mexico in Las Cruces, N.M., on Tuesday. Anti-abortion activists from across the country converged in southern New Mexico on Tuesday to protest relocation plans by the Mississippi clinic at the center of the court battle that overturned Roe v. Wade. (Meg Potter\/The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815,138],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-39376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico","tag-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39376"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=39376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}