Santa Fe, NM — Today, despite unified Republican opposition, Senate Bill 57 passed the Senate. This measure creates a new Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) exemption for publicly funded entities whose employees perform abortions. Democrats even killed a common sense amendment presented by Senate Republicans that would have maintained public access to aggregate data and statistics, effectively hiding every aspect of these matters from the public.
In response, Senator Pat Woods (R-Broadview) issued the following statement:
"This is not an abortion argument, it's a government transparency argument." The Senator continued, "There are already exemptions for sensitive and personal information an IPRA request cannot reveal to the public, so what exactly is this bill trying to hide? New Mexicans rightfully deserve to know how their taxpayer dollars are being spent, this bill aims to directly contradict that. I stand for government transparency which is why I firmly stood against this proposal."
