From Roe to Dobbs and Beyond: A resurrection in New Mexico

Shannon Brewer, executive director of the Las Cruces Women’s Health Organization, poses a painting of the “Pink House,” the former location of the clinic in Jackson, Mississippi, on May 10, 2024. Brewer managed the Jackson clinic before its lawsuit against the state resulted in the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Brewer calls the painting one of her favorite pieces of art. (Corrie Boudreaux for Alabama Reflector)

Diane Derzis bought a clinic in Jackson, Mississippi, in 2010. It was the state’s only abortion provider.

She’d been doing this work for decades. First in Birmingham, then around the country. She’d navigated many crises in her career — protesters, threats, even the awful aftermath of a clinic bombing.

But now, in late June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court upended federal abortion rights with a ruling on a case bearing her Mississippi clinic’s name: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

After the ruling came down, Derzis drove from her home in Birmingham to her clinic in Jackson. Within hours of the decision, she was speaking at a news conference there.

Mississippi, like many other states in the South, was moving swiftly to outlaw abortion.

“It was absolutely depressing because we knew that the most vulnerable of women were being left behind,” she said. “And I think that’s why Jackson was so important to us, is that these were the most vulnerable women.”

Besides Mississippi, 12 other states had trigger laws that would outlaw abortion once the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, according to the research and policy organization the Guttmacher Institute: Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

Alabama’s near-total abortion ban, passed in 2019 but blocked by a federal judge before the Dobbs decision, went into effect shortly after Roe fell. Other states would go on to pass abortion restrictions of some kind or another.

Derzis was troubled by the job losses that were going to happen after the Jackson clinic closed.

But she also felt motivated. She wanted to fight even harder for abortion care in the United States. And she was excited about a project she’d been working on.

Around the time the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Dobbs, Derzis and Shannon Brewer, Jackson Women’s Health Organization’s administrator, had started hunting for a new home for the clinic.

New Mexico was the only state Derzis considered. For one, abortion access was safe there.

“The thought of being in a state that actually valued what you did was a new concept,” Derzis said with a chuckle.

But there were other reasons, too. Derzis felt New Mexico was tranquil. She owned residential property there. Ever since she was younger, she had wanted to have a clinic in the state — Santa Fe, specifically.

New Mexico was also relatively close to Texas and the South, where abortion access would quickly disappear after Dobbs. That proximity was important to Derzis. Her focus for the relocated clinic would be out-of-state patients.

The hunt was on. Santa Fe got eliminated. It wasn’t close enough to El Paso, Texas. Derzis also visited Hobbs, near the state’s border with Texas. It had a cute downtown. The buildings were “quite affordable,” she remembered. But there were Trump signs everywhere. So many that Derzis joked that the former president had them manufactured there. She said it wouldn’t be safe to operate a clinic there.

There was also Las Cruces. The second-largest city in New Mexico emerged as the winner.

Derzis and her business partners bought a two-story, 5,500 square-foot building the following month. A former dentist’s office, it was much bigger than what they needed. Unused for years, it still had dental equipment inside.

But it was available. The location was perfect. And it checked every other box. Good neighborhood. Pharmacy right beside it. Medical buildings nearby. Easily accessible by car via the interstate.

Las Cruces already had one abortion clinic. And Planned Parenthood was in the process of opening a clinic there, too. None of this fazed Derzis. New Mexicans weren’t necessarily the patients she was trying to reach.

As for whether it made financial sense to have an abortion clinic in a city or town that already had at least one, Derzis said that used to be something she had to think about. But when Dobbs took effect, abortion effectively ended in Texas, which had two dozen clinics operating in the state at that time, according to the Texas Tribune.

“Those patients had to go somewhere,” Derzis said. “So we knew they would be going to the closest state, which was New Mexico or, perhaps, Illinois.”

Brewer got Las Cruces Women’s Health Organization up and running while managing the clinic in Jackson. She split time living in Las Cruces and Jackson during this time. Hopscotching between the two took at least around 16 hours — or nearly 1,100-miles — each way if going by car.

Brewer had never started a clinic up from scratch before. But she had help. Her sister had come out to assist.  And locals in Las Cruces asked what she needed. Folks would show up wanting to volunteer with setup.

After the leak of the Supreme Court’s decision, Brewer and her sister would wake up around 6 a.m. They would work on getting the clinic in Las Cruces set up until 8 or 9 p.m. Over and over, day in, day out. They’d hang pictures. Clean. Order things. Set up rooms.

Shannon Brewer, executive director of the Las Cruces Women’s Health Organization in Las Cruces, N.M., stands in the clinic’s recovery room on May 10, 2024. The clinic, decorated with original art, opened after the end of Roe v. Wade to serve women from states where abortion has been outlawed. (Corrie Boudreaux for Alabama Reflector)

The hardest part was trying to figure out how to let patients know about the Las Cruces clinic. To address that, Brewer strategically picked journalists she’d do interviews with. She had particular audiences in mind, especially Texas.

“If they’re wanting to interview us, then this is taking up a lot of my time that I’m taking away from Jackson and Las Cruces,” Brewer said. “So it has to be beneficial for me, for the patients, for everybody if I’m going to do that.”

Hiring  for Las Cruces Women’s Health Organization began shortly after the Dobbs ruling. Employees at the Jackson clinic were offered the opportunity to go to Las Cruces. Derzis and Brewer offered to cover relocation expenses and a place to stay. But only Brewer and her sister made the move. Most of the women at the clinic in Mississippi, Derzis said, had their roots and families there.

“This is small-town South, you know?” Derzis said. “That’s where your home is.”

In a nearby parking lot in the scorching heat on a Tuesday in July that year, anti-abortion activists held a rally across the street from the yet-to-be-opened clinic in Las Cruces. For about an hour and a half person after person came to the microphone to speak — 11 in all. The event was livestreamed.

Some in the crowd sat. Others stood. There were signs. “BABY LIVES MATTER” read one in big, capital letters. “My favorite Right is LIFE” read another.  At least two people held large wooden crosses.

“Twenty-nine eighteen Hillrise will be free of abortions one day soon because, with God, all things are possible,” said David Bereit, the founder of a religious anti-abortion organization called 40 Days For Life, after briefly turning away from the crowd and looking in the direction of the clinic behind him. Bereit is the founder of a religious anti-abortion organization called 40 Days for Life.

Brewer wasn’t in town. But she was kept in the loop. Her sister and a friend texted her pictures and videos.

Toward the end of the rally, Mark Cavaliere stepped to the lectern. He was with the Southwest Coalition for Life, another religious anti-abortion group.

“It seems like every few days, we hear about a new abortion corporation coming into New Mexico,” Cavaliere said. “We’re going from five abortion businesses in the state of New Mexico to tripling that number, possibly quadrupling that number. And it’s, it’s just been overwhelming.”

His prediction wouldn’t come to pass. According to the University of California San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), which has a database of abortion clinics, there were six abortion facilities in New Mexico in 2021. The website abortionfinder.org listed 11 facilities providing in-person services in the state as of Wednesday.

Still, he announced that day that Southwest Coalition for Life had leased a nearby building. There, it would spin up a pregnancy center to counter Las Cruces Women’s Health Organization. Also known as a crisis pregnancy center, it would be a facility that tries to dissuade those who are pregnant from having an abortion.

“So, before they’ve even opened,” Cavaliere said, referring to Derzis’ abortion clinic, “we’re setting the stage.”

Two and a half weeks after the rally, Las Cruces Women’s Health Organization opened on Aug. 5, 2022. Guiding Star Southwest, a crisis pregnancy center, operates nearby.

Derzis visited the clinic about a month later. It was beautiful. It had warmth. It gave a sense that patients were going to be taken care of. Walls inside were painted fuchsia, yellows, oranges, blues, greens. Derzis cried that day.

“It was just like one big ol’ beautiful testament to women, you know?” Derzis said. “That women have the ability, and only women have that ability, to make this decision.”

• • •

Diane Derzis poses in her home in Birmingham, Alabama on May 10, 2024. (Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector)

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe, women have had to navigate hurdles in order to attempt to get an abortion. That includes abortions because of medical emergencies for the mother or baby.

“It brings out such rage in me,” Derzis said. “The only way I can fix that is to build clinics.”

Derzis opened two more abortion clinics, one in Bristol, Virginia, and one in Chicago, both with Brewer’s help.

It was time to take a break after Chicago. Derzis was 69-years-old. But she wasn’t eyeing retirement.

She wanted to reassess opening more abortion clinics. At that point, her portfolio consisted of five. In addition to her three newest clinics — Las Cruces, Bristol and Chicago — there were her two older ones that were still up and running from before Roe’s demise: One in Richmond, Virginia, and one in Columbus, Georgia. She said she still hopes to open a clinic in Maryland.

Derzis expanded her small core team of staff to handle the brunt of day-to-day operations across the clinics. That has helped her recharge.

Nowadays, Derzis is less active with her clinics. But she’s a sounding board when it comes to important decisions.

“It’s definitely been a step back,” she said. “I’m not planning on dying anytime soon, but, you know, they’re a great deal younger than I am, and they’re the future.”

Derzis just turned 70 and is just south of 50 years of working in abortion care. How much longer was she going to stay in the abortion-access movement?

“Until I’m dead. Seriously,” the Abortion Queen said without hesitation. Or until she’s unable, she added moments later.

Why?

“Because there’s no way I would give up now when it’s at a crisis point.”

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