The rabid anti-abortionists in Texas aren’t satisfied with threatening the health and bodily autonomy of women in their own state. They are now pressuring and literally dictating anti-abortion laws in the neighboring state of New Mexico. And their designs don’t stop there.

Source NM has been reporting on this encroachment:

Abortion rights opponents in Texas dictated terms and pressured officials in New Mexico municipalities to pass ordinances restricting clinics, according to public records — potentially as part of a bigger legal strategy.

Emails show former Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell and Mark Lee Dickson, founder of the “Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn” initiative, succeeded in influencing local governments in rural parts of the state — despite warnings and hesitation from local officials.

In late 2022 and early 2023, the New Mexico cities of Clovis and Hobbs passed ordinances saying people have no right to violate the Comstock Act of 1873, a previously obscure federal statute that bans the mailing of abortion pills or abortion-related materials. They were later joined by Eunice and Edgewood, and Roosevelt and Lea Counties.

It’s a fairly complicated situation, which I will do my best to simplify. Abortion is accessible in New Mexico but to date not protected as a constitutional right. As New Mexico has become a haven for abortion access in the wake of Texas’ and other states' bans, some local, more conservative NM governments have passed ordinances against it. But in June, 2023, the state legislature passed a law preventing governments or individuals from interfering with the access or use of reproductive health care. The state attorney general has asked the supreme court to nullify the ordinances and to create a constitutional right to abortion.

Meanwhile, Source NM has gotten hold of evidence showing a shocking level of intrusion by Texas anti-abortion activists. For example, emails show “Mitchell required any changes to the Clovis ordinance be approved by him, he was providing free legal advice to Eunice about amending the ordinance, and Dickson directed the language of the Hobbs ordinance.”

Mitchell also promised in advance to represent the municipalities of Clovis, Hobbs and Eunice in court, without charge, if the adopted ordinances got challenged. Dickson has refused to tell Source NM how they can afford to do that work or who or what may be funding it. Two New Mexico legal experts described it as highly unusual for outsiders to dictate the terms of a local ordinance.

The NM Supreme Court seems likely to rule that state law trumps the local ordinances. But Mitchell, who also represented Donald Trump in the SCOTUS Colorado case, and Dickson probably don't care. If anything, a loss could help them get this case to the anti-abortion U.S. Supreme Court.

Mitchell told The Nation that regardless of how the New Mexico justices rule, the legal challenge will accelerate his goal of getting Comstock in front of the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In other words, small localities in New Mexico are just pawns in the MAGA goal of ever increasing power over women’s bodies and restrictions of rights and liberties.