New Mexico governor starts abortion hotline staffed by state health department nurses

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has announced that her administration has established an abortion hotline for women seeking abortion in the state. The toll-free number will offer information on abortion facilities and connect callers with transportation options for abortion travel.

According to KVIA, the hotline will be manned by registered nurses who work for the New Mexico Department of Health, with salaries that “will be funded by already existing resources.”

“They’re really experienced in terms of helping New Mexicans, you know, access health resources and doing health assessments over the phone,” Madison Schaeffer with the New Mexico Department of Health told KOAT. “We can meet somebody’s needs immediately and tell them ‘we’ve got appointments next week here and we can get you in.'”

New Mexico is considered one of the most radically pro-abortion states in the nation. Earlier this year, Lujan Grisham signed legislation that could eliminate conscience protections for those who object to abortion, takes away the right of local jurisdictions to make their own laws regarding abortion, and result in minors legally obtaining an abortion without parental knowledge or consent.

Last August, she signed an executive order stating that $10 million in state funds would be earmarked for the development of a new abortion facility.

Abortion hotlines have also been set up in other states hoping to become abortion destinations, including Oregon and Massachusetts. In April, the Biden administration announced plans to establish a hotline of its own. While these hotlines generally boast of “helping” women by offering them information about abortion, they offer little in the way of genuine assistance. Callers are given no information about services or pregnancy resource centers that can help them if they want to give birth to their children rather than end their lives. Ethel Maharg, director of Love Life Alburquerque, told KOAT that it’s this information that women really need.

“The problem that we have is that we’re not acknowledging that it’s a life. It’s a child,” she said. “How about we help them pay their rent? How about we make their lives a little bit easier for that?”

According to KOAT, the New Mexico Department of Health reports that more than 5,000 abortions have been committed in the state this year already, more than two times as many as all of 2021.