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.
President Obama has moved to rescind a Bush administration “midnight regulation” that would make it much more difficult for women to get information about and access to birth control, abortion and sterilization. As NMI reported, the rule had been opposed by major health-care organizations, Democratic legislators and many state government health groups. The required 30-day public comment period on Obama’s move ends tonight.
In New Mexico, the Southwest Women’s Law Center strongly opposes the rule, in particular because it would cause serious conflict with state laws ensuring that rape victims have access to emergency contraception, and preventing health care institutions from interfering with doctors’ ability to provide reproductive health information and services.
The organization, along with groups including the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, last year signed on to a letter to former Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt, protesting the original rule.
On Wednesday, dozens of pro-life health-care workers in Washington, D.C. protested Obama’s plan to rescind the rule. While some religious groups support the rule, others do not. The United Methodist Church takes a pragmatic view:
The Provider Refusal Law already ensures that health-care providers do not have to provide abortion and sterilization services if doing so contradicts their religious or moral beliefs. …[President Bush] extended it beyond abortion and sterilization to contraception, fertility treatments, end-of-life care, and many other health-care services. By limiting access to birth control, the expansion of the conscience clause actually hurts efforts to prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion.
You can read the rule and submit comments on this page at Regulations.gov until 10 p.m. MST (midnight EST).
