Opinion: NM could use a little less attention

New Mexico’s been making the national news a lot lately, and not the good kind.

First came the wildfires. The Hermits Peak Fire was making national headlines even before it merged with the Calf Canyon Fire and became the biggest fire in state history. Before that there was the McBride Fire that ripped through a residential woodland at Ruidoso, killing two people, and since then we’ve seen the Black Fire in the Gilas grow into the state’s second largest fire ever.

As of this writing, the nation has turned its attention toward the Washburn Fire burning inside Yosemite National Forest in California, where hundreds of massive sequoias, the largest trees on earth and thousands of years old, are threatened. The tragedy of a burning West continues as the world keeps heating up.

Then came our involvement in the Capital invasion on Jan. 6 and the false narrative that followed. The fact that President Trump’s attorney John Eastman lives in Santa Fe is little more than a side note, except for the reported drama involving the seizure of his cellphone outside a restaurant in the City Different.

Eastman, you probably know by now, was deeply involved in efforts to overturn the election. I didn’t know, nor did other New Mexicans, that he’s been living in Santa Fe until the national media reported it — though he also has a home in Long Beach, Calif., and who knows where else.

If any other state wants to claim him, I’m pretty sure super-liberal Santa Fe will be happy to give him up.

Another kind of political misbehavior, however, came out of Otero County last month when the county commission there made national headlines by refusing, briefly, to certify its primary election results out of concern for the Dominion voting machines being used.

I’m looking forward to the outcome of Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox News. Maybe those who have advanced baseless accusations about corrupt voting machines will end up having to pay dearly for their misdeeds, and now, maybe Otero County will be part of that price tag.

Far more consequential, however, is the national attention New Mexico is getting over the issue of abortion.

You’ll recall that, immediately after the Roe reversal, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham came out swinging, issuing an executive order protecting reproductive rights not just for New Mexico women but for out-of-staters who come into the state to get an abortion. And guess what, they’re heading this way.

In Mississippi, where the case challenging Roe originated, there’s a least one clinic preparing to move to Las Cruces. And I heard talk in the national media that at least one other abortion clinic is expected to open near the Texas state line, where abortions are now illegal practically from conception forward.

I hate to say it, but the extremes on both sides will be front and center in the upcoming battle over abortion rights, especially in New Mexico. Late-term abortions will become more common because of the added delay of having to cross state lines, and that will feed the anti-abortion outcry, while horror stories of little girls being raped and forced to give birth are already making the rounds, feeding the outrage of the pro-choice crowd.

I don’t know about you, but I could use a break from all this attention. It sure was a lot quieter when we were nothing but a flyover state.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

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