Texas clinic and Mississippi's only abortion clinic share plans to move to New Mexico

A Texas abortion provider and the last abortion clinic in Mississippi have each announced plans to shut down and move to New Mexico, a state in which abortions remain legal.

The Texas abortion clinic, Whole Woman's Health, announced Wednesday that it would be closing its Lone Star clinics and seeking a site just across the border in New Mexico, at which it will provide first- and second-trimester abortions.

The group is hoping to raise three-quarters of a million dollar for its relocation efforts. The new clinic will potentially serve residents of Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma and other relatively close states that have now instituted abortion bans. 

Similarly, in Mississippi, the last abortion clinic in the state, officially shuttered Wednesday, one day before the trigger ban that outlaws nearly all abortions in the state went into effect. 

The woman who led the clinic, Shannon Brewer, is involved in the Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that led to the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, which for decades provided a constitutional right to abortion.

She told the Washington Post several weeks ago that the clinic plans to relocate to New Mexico.

The team will relocate to Las Cruces, a town in southern New Mexico. 

Since the Supreme Court last month returned power to the states to decide abortion laws, many companies have volunteered to pay for their employees to travel to receive abortions.

Beyond proximity, New Mexico became a short-list choice to relocate clinics after Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham last month signed an executive order that protects medical providers in her state from "discipline due to an out-of-state resident receiving abortion services in New Mexico."

According to the order, the state will also "not entertain extradition attempts from other states relating to receiving or performing reproductive services."

In the states that immediately border New Mexico – Utah, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Texas – most abortions have been outlawed. In neighboring Colorado, however, abortion remains legal at all stages of a pregnancy.