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Biden administration moves to protect Alaska wilderness; opening statements and first witness in NY trial; SCOTUS hears Starbucks case, with implications for unions on the line; rural North Carolina town gets pathway to home ownership.

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The Supreme Court weighs cities ability to manage a growing homelessness crisis, anti-Israeli protests spread to college campuses nationwide, and more states consider legislation to ban firearms at voting sites and ballot drop boxes.

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Wyoming needs more educators who can teach kids trade skills, a proposal to open 40-thousand acres of an Ohio forest to fracking has environmental advocates alarmed and rural communities lure bicyclists with state-of-the-art bike trail systems.

Who’s Controlling Birth Control?

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Wednesday, October 9, 2013   

SANTA FE, N.M. - A check-up on the control of birth control in New Mexico shows that the latest product - emergency contraception sold under the brand name Plan B One-Step - is sometimes two or three steps away.

It's cleared for sale on store shelves without ID or proof of age, but is locked up by some stores, as the weekly Santa Fe Reporter newspaper discovered.

Plan B should be lauded by everyone, said Dr. Alfredo Vigil, family physician and former secretary of the New Mexico Department of Health, but he finds there is still uneasiness in discussing prevention of unintended pregnancies.

"Sometimes nobody wants to talk about it because it sounds like they're breaking ranks," he said. "But since you rarely see people with very, very large families that they haven't decided to have on their own, obviously family planning has permeated our society."

Misinformation doesn't help, Vigil said, pointing to those who have wrongly labeled Plan B an "abortion pill." It prevents fertilization, so if conception has already happened, it won't work. That's why access needs to be quick, easy and affordable, he adds.

Medically, Plan B is approved and deemed safe for ages 12 and older. Some stores say they require ID to prove the customer is at least 17 until new labels come in. Others lock it up for theft protection. It comes with a $50 price tag, and the generic Levonorgestrel is only about $10 less, which creates another barrier for many people.

Vigil sees the Plan B discussion and the abortion spotlight on New Mexico as part of a larger debate, one that's been going on for a very long time.

"It really has much more to do with subjugating women's free will, and the fear that if we don't keep the limit on what women are allowed to do and decide and be, et cetera, et cetera, then some kind of bad thing will happen in the world."

Albuquerque is a hotspot for the abortion-access debate. Next month, voters will decide a ballot initiative proposing a complete ban on abortions after 20 weeks, effectively closing down the last late-term clinic in the Southwest. Called "Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Ordinance," national advocates on both sides are carefully watching the outcome, which is the first attempt to prohibit late-term procedures at the city level.

This story was produced with data from the Santa Fe Reporter and is part of the Reproductive Justice Reporting Project, an initiative of the Media Consortium in partnership with the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, made possible with a grant from the Quixote Foundation.


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