State lawmakers want to change the fact that New Mexico remains one of only two states where bestiality is still legal.
Senate Bill 215 has been introduced in the current legislature to criminalize the sexual abuse of animals. West Virginia is the only other state in which acts of bestiality are legal.
“Quite frankly, bestiality is gross,” Republican state Sen. Mark Moores, who represents part of Bernalillo County, recently told KOB 4. “It’s wrong. I have no idea why this hasn’t been made a priority in the past.”
The bill also makes it a crime to possess any kind of pornography related to the sexual abuse of animals, the KOB 4 report said. The legislation has a sponsor from both parties.
“I cannot imagine any of my colleagues not wanting to ban this horrendous practice,” Moores said. “This is what government should look like when we’re presented with like ghastly images, that we can put partisanship aside and work together.”
Jessica Johnson of Animal Protection Voters in New Mexico said that people in the state are engaging in bestiality, and her organization is urging state lawmakers to pass the legislation.
“It’s important that New Mexico starts to take this seriously because we know that it causes a lot of harm to the animals that are victimized,” she told KOB 4. “It’s connected to a lot of other offenses that relate to harming people, including children.”
Johnson also noted that sexual abuse of animals is underreported and is even more of a problem when the act is legal.
“This is a difficult topic,” she said. “It’s enraging. It’s heartbreaking.”
Beastiality has been a crime on a federal level since the 1950′s under the United States Armed Forces Code. The Code states that individuals who engage in “unnatural carnal copulation with an animal” are guilty of bestiality and will be punished by way of court-martial.
In 2019, the U.S. Congress passed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act. The law criminalizes the creation, sale and distribution of “crush” videos, or videos depicting cruelty with animals being “crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury” in interstate or foreign commerce.
