Goodman: What Yvette Herrell says and what she does on abortion
In a recent “op-ed,” Yvette Herrell say she dislikes New Mexico’s law permitting abortion, and favors re-criminalizing most abortions, and that her opponents misrepresent her views.
She doesn’t say if she’d extend criminal liability to folks driving someone to get an abortion, as do draconian laws passed by her political allies in Texas and elsewhere. As we read of harrowing situations of women escaping to New Mexico merely to protect their health, or unable to escape, Herrell mocks our state’s compassion and tolerance as “creating a late-term abortion tourism industry.” The phrase, “Abortion tourism” insults those women. Electing a majority of Herrell allies to the legislature could be life-threatening for girls and women.
Herrell describes pro-choice voters as “liberal special interest groups smearing me and misleading New Mexico voters about my positions.”
However, for many, Herrell’s own words are the problem. She’s “pro-life. As a Christian, I believe every human life is a sacred gift from God.”
I’m truly pro-life. I believe every life [not merely human] is a marvelous gift, not mine to destroy, although I surely take out many mosquitoes and the few roaches I see. (Scorpions I carry outside. Rattlers, further away.) Herrell has no more right to impose her Christian views on us than would a strict Buddhist seeking to outlaw killing mosquitoes. (Buddhists would be far less likely to try.)
She adds, “I also greatly empathize with the many women who find themselves with an unintended pregnancy.” but her “empathy” would still advocate jailing their doctors unless the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest or clearly endangered the mother’s life – an exception she previously opposed. She says “it is important that we extend every option available to women to help them make the right decision for their personal situation,” so long as that decision doesn’t go beyond her narrow confines.
Herrell does “fully support increased access to birth control,” unlike Republicans who are banning that in Louisiana. (Oddly, in 2022 when Congress voted on a bill to protect contraception access, she voted “No!”). She also says “we must do a better job of supporting mothers — and fathers — through pregnancy, birth, and beyond.” Let’s remind her of that the next time Congress is considering SNAP benefits and other ways governments can help out poor families in need. She also promises she would not support a national ban that would overrule New Mexico’s laws on the subject, although she certainly supported such bans in the past, starting with fertilization. Those bans she sponsored made no exceptions.
Those are her words, which she wants us to understand her by, ignoring her actions. She says she’d respect New Mexico’s right to decide the issue, unlike the way she voted when a congresswoman. (One might ask why, believing her God requires her to save even a fertilized egg from murder, she’s abandoning that sacred cause. I wonder how He views that.)
I thoroughly agree with her on one point: “We can disagree civilly on difficult issues like abortion, while working together” on other issues and needs of our country and New Mexicans. I spend a lot of time encouraging dialogue among folks with various points of view. I hope Ms. Herrell will join us on radio when we try to talk with her and her opponent, Congressman Gabe Vasquez. A genuine dialogue can only help in having elections decided by the most knowledgeable voters we can become.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Goodman: What Yvette Herrell says and what she does on abortion
