| For Immediate Release: October 25, 2018 Contact: [email protected] |
Yesterday brought the third and final debate in the New Mexico gubernatorial race between pro-choice champion Michelle Lujan Grisham and anti-choice extremist Steve Pearce. These debates provide a critical opportunity to hold both candidates accountable on issues that directly impact the daily lives of New Mexicans. Yet, debate moderators did not directly ask candidates their views on a key issue for many voters: abortion access.
Moderators refused to ask candidates this key question despite national and state-level threats to Roe v. Wade, including a pre-Roe ban on abortion that could criminalize abortion if the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade still on the books in New Mexico, and NSC/WSJ polling that shows that Roe v. Wade is more popular than ever. As NARAL recently outlined in two letters to debate moderators (both for the KOB debate and last night’s KAOT debate), constituents deserve to know how candidates plan to protect access to basic reproductive healthcare.
“Debates play an important role in educating voters and voters deserve to know where candidates stand on reproductive freedom,” said NARAL Pro-Choice America Political Director Nicole Brener-Schmitz. “The failure to address the crisis of abortion access in our country, and specifically the potential threat to Roe and its subsequent impact on New Mexico is a crisis that threatens the health and economic security of women and families across the state.”
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