This is the second installment in a series of exposés highlighting the UNM’s involvement in the Abortion Cartel. (Read Part One)
By Tara Shaver, Project Defending Life
Albuquerque, NM- The University of New Mexico (UNM) is at the heart of the abortion industry in the Land of Enchantment.
During our four years of work in Albuquerque, the home of the Lobos, we discovered that the abortion culture is deeply entrenched at this publicly-funded institution and expanding – all at taxpayers’ expense.
Little can New Mexico afford to pour hundreds of thousands of hard-earned tax dollars in to UNM’s abortion business. It is one of the poorest states in the nation, ranking Number 1 for child hunger and Number 2 for adult hunger according to the Huffington Post. In 2013, New Mexico ranked last in the nation for child well-being, climbing only one spot to 49th in 2014.
Could it be that New Mexico’s flagship institution is contributing to these troubling statistics by wasting its resources on its enormous abortion program?
“Our tax dollars would be better spent actually helping to bring children out of poverty instead of being doled out to the University of New Mexico to kill them,” said Bud Shaver of Project Defending Life.
Deadly Expansion
In 2007, UNM launched its free-standing abortion clinic, the UNM Center for Reproductive Health (UNMCRH), which conducts abortions up to 22 weeks gestation, or over half way through pregnancy.
In addition to this off-campus freestanding abortion clinic, there is also a clinic on campus performing abortions up to 11.5 weeks gestation. Known as the Family Practice Center, it offers specialized services in ObGyn through the Department of Family Practice at UNM.
Essentially UNM is running two abortions clinics.
On April 1, 2014, the UNMCRH opened a new 8,000 square-foot facility that was approved by the UNM Medical Group Finance Committee and Council of Chairs. UNMCRH is managed by the UNM Medical Group, a 501c3 non-profit corporation, and is staffed by UNM Hospital physicians.
While 6,000 feet of this new facility is dedicated to the UNMCRH for abortions, 2,000 feet is designated to a newly formed Young Women’s Center, which is a collaboration between the ObGyn and Pediatrics Departments. A call placed to the YWC staff revealed that the center is primarily a birth control clinic for minors.
“When minor children fail to use birth control or exercise poor judgment that minor children are known to do from time to time, they become ready customers for the UNM’s abortion business,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, which partners with Project Defending Life. “It is troubling that the UNM would be exploiting children in this way.”
But the exploitation doesn’t stop there.
UNM also has a presence through School Based Health Centers in two Albuquerque high schools, three middle schools, and one elementary school. The Adolescent Division of UNM proudly boasts that their “physicians are comfortable seeing teenagers with any sort of problem, from acne to contraception.”
There can be no doubt that UNM has a specific agenda to promote the abortion culture to minors, which should be extremely troubling to the parents of these young people.
Abortion Training and the ACGME
UNM is currently one of 68 universities that participate in the Kenneth J. Ryan Residency Program in Abortion and Family Planning. The Ryan Program, founded in 1999, is a national initiative whose mission is to embed abortion training into residency programs throughout the United States and Canada.
In 1996, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) mandated that ob-gyn residency education must include access to experience with induced abortion. This mandate has become an excuse for keeping UNM’s free standing abortion clinic open.
However, ACGME Obstetrics and Gynecology Program Requirement IV.A.2.d states:
No program or resident with a religious or moral objection shall be required to provide training in or to perform induced abortions. Otherwise, access to experience with induced abortion must be part of residency education. This education can be provided outside the institution. [Emphasis added]
It is clear that UNM is not required to run their own freestanding abortion clinic to train medical residents to perform abortions.
The ACGME further states that abortion training programs are required to provide residents with the ability to “opt out” of the programs and even acknowledges that there may be instances where every resident declines to participate in abortion training.
Because of this, Project Defending Life recently launched an ad campaign in the UNM Daily Lobo, the official campus newspaper, informing students of their right to decline to participate in abortion training and encouraging students to exercise their right to opt-out.
Funding
If abortion training at a UNM facility isn’t mandatory, why is UNM so determined to keep the UNMCRH running? Perhaps the motive is where the profit is.
UNMCRH has an average annual revenue of nearly $2 million. So far in 2014, the clinic has brought in $1.7 million, with $750,000 of that being paid out by New Mexico’s Medicaid program. That means 44% of UNMCRH’s income comes from state Medicaid coffers.
Furthermore, 2013 New Mexico Medicaid information obtained through a public records request shows that 17 of the 34 abortionists that received state Medicaid funding for abortions were UNM employees.
UNM is propagating an agenda of death using taxpayer money earmarked for healthcare that is in no way benefitting the health of the citizens of New Mexico.
UNM has demonstrated its commitment to promote and expand abortion in this poverty-ridden state through training of new abortionists and the exploitation of minors through their new Young Women’s Center and public school birth control clinics.
In case there is any further doubt of UNM’s deep commitment to the killing of innocent children in the womb, this year, it promoted abortionist Eve Espy of the UNMCRH to ObGyn Chair for the UNM School of Medicine. In validation of Espy’s radical abortion agenda, she was presented with the 2014 Margaret Sanger Award by New Mexico Planned Parenthood for “her leadership and outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement in New Mexico.”
The centerpiece of her contributions, unmentioned by Planned Parenthood, was more dead New Mexico children.
“Abortion currently touches all aspects of The University of New Mexico, a publicly funded institution. Why should the people of New Mexico be taxed to support UNM and not know about UNM’s involvement in pre-born child killing? Why should the people of New Mexico be given no opportunity to decide how they want their most prestigious institution and only medical school to represent their standards and values? Now is the time to end Albuquerque’s reputation as the Abortion Capital of the Southwest and the Late Term Abortion Capital of the Nation starting with UNM. We urge them to abandon their radical abortion agenda,” stated Fr. Stephen Imbarrato Founder of Project Defending Life.
Members of Project Defending Life have met with UNM Regents, including the Board of Regents President Jack Fortner, and the Health Sciences Center Dean, Paul Roth, to express concerns about the blatant disregard for human life at UNM. Unfortunately, those meetings were to no avail.
We invite the public to voice concerns about the UNM’s heavy involvement in abortion to Dr. Paul Roth.
Contact :
Paul B. Roth, MD, MS
Chancellor for Health Sciences
CEO, UNM Health System
Dean, School of Medicine
Phone: (505) 272-5849
E-mail: PRoth@salud.unm.edu
