New Mexico has directly addressed Texas health care providers in a multi-city campaign urging them to leave the state over abortion restrictions.
new “Provided for free” The New Mexico State Health Department took out full-page ads in five major Texas newspapers on Sunday. Dallas Morning News It contained a letter from New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, referencing Texas’ abortion laws, some of the strictest in the nation.
“You took an oath of office with patients, not politicians, in mind,” Dr. Lujan Grisham said in the open letter. “I certainly respect your dedication to caring for patients in Texas, but if these restrictions are no longer acceptable to you, I urge you to consider opening your practice next door in New Mexico.”
Texas abortion law prohibits abortion in all cases except to protect the life of the mother. Abortion is legal in New Mexico, which also has a so-called shield law that protects abortion doctors from investigations by other states.
More than 14,200 Texans traveled to New Mexico for abortion care in 2023, the study found. Recent Analysis A study by the Guttmacher Institute. Kansas, the state with the second highest number of abortion patients after Texas, performed more than 6,600 abortions that year.
New Mexico Health Secretary Patrick Allen said in an interview that the number of patients coming “as far away” from Texas is outnumbering those coming to New Mexico from other states. Like other states, New Mexico is facing a physician shortage in nearly every specialty.
“We think this is a clear opportunity. The legal situation in Texas is pretty dramatic,” Allen said. “Texans may have some affinity to life in the Southwest, so I don’t think it’s a big leap for them to think about New Mexico culturally.”
Andrew Maharelis, a spokesman for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, fired back at the ad in a statement on Monday.
“People and businesses are voting with their feet and continue to choose to relocate to Texas over any other state in the nation,” Maharelis said. “Governor Lujan Grisham should focus on the state’s rapidly declining population issue, not political tactics.”
The campaign, which cost about $400,000, Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News and Fort Worth Star-TelegramSigns for the initiative were installed around the Texas Medical Center in Houston two weeks ago and are expected to remain up for at least another two weeks, Allen said.
Texas has already struggled to recruit residents in the wake of the Dobbs ruling, which eliminated federal abortion protections: For the 2023-24 application cycle, applications for residency positions in Texas obstetrics and gynecology programs fell 16% and family medicine fell 12.6%, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Data from the Association of American Medical CollegesApplications across all specialties in the state fell 11.7%.
