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.
On Tuesday an Arizona court found that Maricopa County Sheriff Joseph Arpaio can no longer force women prisoners to pay in advance for transportation and security costs in order to obtain an abortion, according to a press release from the American Civil Liberties Union, which had sued on behalf of the women.From the release:
Earlier this year, as part of a partial settlement in an ACLU lawsuit involving the right of women prisoners to obtain timely, safe and legal abortions, Arpaio agreed to follow a 2005 court order prohibiting Maricopa County correctional facilities from requiring inmates to obtain a court order before an abortion. However, in the course of settlement negotiations, Arpaio decided inmates must prepay transportation and security costs associated with obtaining the procedure. In his ruling today, Judge Robert H. Oberbilling of the Superior Court of Arizona indicated that requiring inmates to prepay security and transportation costs could be more onerous than the court order Sheriff Arpaio previously required.
…“Sherriff Arpaio has reached the end of the line here. The courts have already confirmed that Arizona prison officials cannot put up roadblocks to abortion care simply because they do not agree with the decision to end a pregnancy,” said Alessandra Soler Meetze, Executive Director of the ACLU of Arizona. “It is time for Sheriff Arpaio to stop wasting taxpayer dollars to impose his own morality on women in his jails and to start upholding the law. Game over.”
To read the brief: http://www.aclu.org/reproductiverights/abortion/40106lgl20090701.html
To read July’s partial settlement: http://www.aclu.org/reproductiverights/abortion/40091lgl20090619.html
