Marcia Smith, a resident of a small town in New Mexico, found herself in the middle of a fight over abortion rights after moving to the liberal state last year.
During a town meeting in April, Smith, a 57-year-old social worker, was shocked when the community of Edgewood in southern Santa Fe County voted to ban the mailing of abortion-inducing pills.
Smith accuses the local politicians behind this ordinance of being enamored with the admiration of MAGA supporters who claim to be Christians.
In response, Smith founded the group “We Call 4 A Recall” with the goal of blocking the municipal ordinance until it can be put to a public vote.
The only person who opposed the project in the municipal assembly, Filandro Anaya, told AFP that he was called “trash” and warned that he would “go to hell.”
After the US Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022, allowing states to set their own laws on the matter, New Mexico, a Democrat-ruled state, became one of the states with the strongest protection for the procedure.
However, the rural community of Edgewood, which has just over 6,000 residents and is predominantly Republican, sought to bypass this protection by following the advice of lawyers from Texas who had drafted a radical anti-abortion law known as the “Heartbeat Law.”
One of these lawyers, Jonathan Mitchell, now represents Donald Trump in a Supreme Court case seeking to exclude the former President from future ballots due to his alleged involvement in the violent invasion of Congress in January 2021.
Smith said Edgewood officials were captivated by the promises made by the Texas lawyers. However, she warns that the threat to abortion rights remains due to their plan to extend this project to all of New Mexico.
Like Texas’s law, Edgewood’s ordinance encourages citizens to enforce it individually by filing lawsuits against any neighbor who receives abortion pills.
It is based on an old federal law from 150 years ago, which has become the new weapon of anti-abortion advocates in the US. This law prohibits the mailing of “obscene, indecent or lascivious” material, including anything intended for preventing conception or obtaining an abortion.
Attack
Mitchell told Edgewood leaders that he plans to file enough lawsuits to cause a power struggle that will force the Supreme Court to intervene, even though the law has been largely unenforced for a century.
He believes that if this happens, it would effectively ban abortion nationwide, making it very difficult even in liberal states like New York, California, and New Mexico. “It would make it very difficult even in liberal states like New York, California, and even New Mexico.” Mitchell declared.
If the Supreme Court rules that this law must be strictly followed, it could be more disastrous for the reproductive rights movement than previously anticipated.
The pills, which are used to terminate pregnancies of up to ten weeks and pose no significant risks, are used in half of all abortions in the US.
After two failed attempts to hold a referendum, Edgewood was set to vote on the issue next month, but local authorities did not approve the proposed ballot, leaving the date uncertain.
Edgewood’s mayor, Ken Brennan, a supporter of the ban, seemed confident about the delay, saying, “I think everything goes straight to the governor’s office. I don’t think they want the referendum to be held. Because if it happens, people will vote in favor, which will not reflect well on the governor who is very pro-abortion,” he explained.
However, many in Edgewood believe that the resolution is beyond the power of local government.
Frank Coppler, a prosecutor in Edgewood, warned the leaders that they did not have the necessary authority to adopt such an ordinance, but they proceeded based on Mitchell’s advice.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my 50 years doing this job,” he said.
According to Marcia Smith, Edgewood has become “a pawn” in the national battle over abortion rights, with visitors from neighboring progressive cities boycotting local restaurants and festivals.
She blames the powerful local churches, which she views as “more political organizations” than places of worship.
Filandro Anaya, the municipal official who opposed the ordinance, told AFP that “the only thing this ordinance did was divide the community.”
