SANTA FE (LifeSiteNews) — New Mexico is set to stop requiring abortionists to report abortions to the state thanks to a law signed by Democrat Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, helping a state that has already become an abortion destination further obscure the true total number of abortions in America.

Taking effect 90 days after the legislature adjourns on May 20, Senate Bill 30 repeals the requirement that all induced abortions be reported to the state registrar within five days.

New Mexico, which permits abortion through all nine months, has been an aggressive supporter of “choice” at the expense of the choices of those who object. In 2024, it spent $400,000 of taxpayer money advertising to “cordially and enthusiastically invite” abortionists in other states to relocate. As a result of the state’s permissive abortion regime, “more than 14,000 women traveled to New Mexico for abortions in 2023, and out-of-state residents accounted for 71% of all abortions that year,” according to Live Action’s Angeline Tan.

With this change, such information threatens to become more difficult to track in the future.

“At a time when lawmakers claim they want transparency and malpractice reform, SB 30 moves New Mexico in the opposite direction,” responded Abortion Free New Mexico spokesperson Tara Shaver. “By repealing abortion reporting without replacement, this Legislature makes it harder to track how tax dollars are spent and harder to ask informed oversight questions. Authentic healthcare does not operate in secrecy. Authentic healthcare requires standards, inspections, and accountability. And healthcare does not ask lawmakers to look away — especially when taxpayer dollars are involved.”

According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, 45 states plus the District of Columbia have “some form” of abortion reporting requirements (their tally includes New Mexico, so the number will drop to 44 once SB 30 takes effect), but there is no uniform nationwide standard. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) has acknowledged that it only collects abortion data voluntarily submitted by states, whose reporting rules vary significantly. California, Maryland, and New Hampshire – three states that are significantly pro-abortion – have historically submitted no data whatsoever, further limiting the public’s understanding of the frequency of things such as late-term abortion and abortion complications.

Reliable, comprehensive data on abortion is more important than ever now that states can directly set their own abortion laws, so policymakers can study and compare the results of the various combinations of state policies (total bans, partial restrictions, public funding, etc.) and how efforts to ban abortion are undermined by tactics such as deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, and making liberal states havens for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors.