I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Photo by Andrew Bain
ALBUQUERQUE — A last-minute rule on women’s health care sailed through one last barrier this week, and unless Congress makes an unexpected move, it will become law before Bush leaves office. As NMI has noted, the regulation, sometimes called the “right of conscience rule” or “refusal rule,” is aimed at making it harder for women to access abortion and emergency contraception, but opponents say the result would be a bureaucratic nightmare that could also make it harder for women to get birth control or have their tubes tied. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has estimated that the rule would affect 584,000 doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and state agencies.
New Mexico officials say they hope the rule will be changed but in the meantime, New Mexico women could be denied care. In particular, the federal regulations are in direct conflict with state laws that require access to contraception and require that emergency contraception be available to sexual assault survivors in emergency rooms.
“[The Obama team] has a long legacy of the Bush administration to deal with and it may take them some time to deal with this. In the meantime, women will be denied health care,” Joan LaMunyon-Sanford, executive director of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, tells the Independent.
The regulation was published in the Federal Register on Thursday. It will not officially go into effect for 30 days, but in the meantime, opponents in Congress and the Obama transition team are working hard to find ways to undo the rule.
Because New Mexico has relatively high rates of poor and uninsured people, regulations tied to federal funds have a greater impact. “The money flows to the state and it is then doled out to subcontractors. Some of these Title X family planning clinics are county health clinics, some are nonprofit, some are private. But I’m very worried about the impact on the clinics,” says Jane Wishner of the Southwest Women’s Law Center.
The burden will be on the state to figure out how to comply with the new rule, but the ramifications are enormous. Because the new regulation is in conflict with several existing state laws, the state has legal counsel looking at the details to see exactly how state agencies will be affected.
“One of our biggest concerns is the burden on the states. We’re worried about how we’re going to ensure access to care,” says Carolyn Ingram, director of the Medical Assistance Division of the New Mexico Human Services Department.
“Implementing this is going to be extremely difficult. You’ll see states definitely stalling before they implement anything,” Ingram says.
When asked if New Mexico would be one of those states, Ingram says, “I definitely do think you’ll see New Mexico working with our congressional delegation and our state leaders to see what the position is going to be on this and how fast it can be changed.”
Photo illustration by RHRealityCheck.org
Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, who is expected to assume the governorship in January or February, is strongly opposed to the rule. In September, Denish sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt, making her views known.
“The regulations ignore patient needs and public health promotion critical to the health and welfare of New Mexicans,” Denish wrote.
In a separate letter, Pamela Hyde, Secretary of Human Services, and Dr. Alfredo Vigil, Secretary of Health, wrote of their concern that the regulation could impede services for those with HIV/AIDS. The rule is so broad, they contended, that it could be interpreted to allow a doctor to refuse to treat a patient because of sexual orientation.
Anti-abortion groups maintain the rule is necessary to protect health care workers from being forced to perform abortions, but opponents say those protections already exist. Three members of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (including one Bush appointee) formally objected to the rule, saying they have worked hard to make sure that workers are protected against religious discrimination in the workplace.
While the rule was ostensibly designed to protect religious freedom, it actually does the opposite, LaMunyon-Sanford says.
“This does not respect the religious beliefs of the patients… Women consider medical decisions very carefully — prayerfully, if they’re a person of faith — and they make a decision they believe is in line with their traditional or religious values,” she says.
“Let’s say a [sexual assault survivor] goes to the emergency room at a Catholic hospital [such as CHRISTUS St. Vincent in Santa Fe]. There could be a doctor there who doesn’t believe in emergency contraception, and this rule would mean that he doesn’t have to offer it. But he doesn’t even have to provide a referral to another doctor or even give her any information about it. Now let’s say there’s another doctor in the same hospital who believes emergency contraception is a moral option. The rules of that Catholic hospital would prevent him from following his conscience and providing the information to her,” LaMunyon-Sanford explains.
Sen. Hillary Clinton and others in Congress have introduced legislation that would overturn the rules but it is not clear whether or not their attempt will succeed. Nor is it clear how long the states will stall on implementing the rule, or how long their stalling will last.
Meanwhile, the Obama transition team is considering a variety of ways to undo the rule and other Bush-era decisions on women’s health. According to a Wall Street Journal report this week:
Action is expected early on executive, regulatory, budgetary and legislative fronts. Decisions that the new administration will weigh include: whether to cut funding for sexual abstinence programs; whether to increase funding for comprehensive sex education programs that include discussion of birth control; whether to allow federal health plans to pay for abortions; and whether to overturn regulations such as one that makes fetuses eligible for health-care coverage under the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
