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.
Recently, several anti-abortion rights groups have rallied against recent ordinances in Baltimore and New York that require so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” to post labels on their doors stating they do not offer or refer for abortion services. Americans United for Life has argued on behalf of the Baltimore CPCs that such a mandate is an unconstitutional violation of free speech. In January, the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of the CPCs, but the city of Baltimore is still appealing its case. Despite the controversial nature of this law, San Francisco is moving ahead with a similar ordinance.
Image from Students for Life of America
The Life Legal Defense Foundation, based in Napa, Calif., is one such group that supports CPCs’ resistance to make clear — through signage — what services they do and do not offer. Yet, last week the organization joined a coalition of anti-abortion-rights groups in petitioning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to put graphic warning labels on abortion.
Youth-centric anti-abortions rights group Students for Life of America (SFLA) started the campaign, which was sparked by the FDA’s recent announcement that cigarette packaging and advertisements will come with more in-depth, graphic warning labels starting September 2012.
“As much as I support the decision by the FDA to hold smokers accountable for the health risks they’re accepting, I can’t help but wonder where the warning labels on abortion are,” writes SFLA Executive Director Kristan Hawkins in a June 23 blog post. “Abortion is the single worst scar on the social justice movement in America. No one is debating that smoking has terrible consequences, but the extermination of innocent children is a crime of much more concern, and one I refuse to stand for.”
SFLA has created a petition asking the FDA to create such a label. The petition can be found at the website AbolishAbortion.com, which is run by SFLA and sponsored by the same coalition of student-led anti-abortion rights groups responsible for the website Expose Planned Parenthood.
According to SFLA’s website, the FDA petition is being co-sponsored by Catholic Coalition of New Mexico, Dr. Gerry M. Nadal, Human Life Alliance, International Right to Life Federation, Life Coalition International, Life Issues Institute, Life Legal Defense Foundation, One More Soul, Operation Rescue, Prolife Nation, the Radiance Foundation, Secular Pro-Life, Students for Life of Illinois and Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust.
As to where such a graphic warning label would be placed, Hawkins suggests abortion facilities, abortion-causing drugs.
In aforementioned blog post, Hawkins argues that abortion warning labels are long overdue:
Now, many folks have begun speaking out against the new FDA regulations on cigarette package. Some non-smokers are complaining that they don’t want to be bothered by unsettling pictures that don’t apply to them, and smokers say they don’t want to feel pressured or uncomfortable while exercising their freedom to purchase and use cigarettes.
[…]
As a political conservative on most issues, I do worry about the over-reaching of the federal government and whether or not the FDA should have the right to impose such regulations in a free society.
However, that’s not the issue that keeps me up all night.
Abortion is.
[…]
If you look at the statistics, it’s clear that abortion kills more Americans than smoking does.
Why is it that the issue of regulating abortion is one health issue the FDA won’t address?
Why shouldn’t abortion facilities be required to post pictures of aborted children in their windows or, at very least, on brochures given to each women who comes to the facility for an abortion?
