Erin Bouquin, New Mexico’s chief medical officer, said she was asked to resign after she promoted condom use in a TV interview as a way to slow the growth of sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers. An hour after her interview aired, Bouquin said she met with Health Department Secretary Catherine Torres and was asked to leave because she had not met the expectations of the state’s Republican governor.

The health department spokeswoman said there was no connection between the interview and Bouquin’s resignation, but Bouquin suspects otherwise because she said Gov. Susana Martinez (R-NM) favors abstinence-only sex education. “On the day I was asked to leave, I said the word condom three times on the news,” she told the Santa Fe New Mexican.

The governor’s office and health department denied any involvement in Bouquin’s resignation. Martinez’s spokesman Scott Darnell said in a statement that “the governor is a proponent of taking a balanced and multi-pronged approach to controlling the spread of sexually transmitted diseases; there is nothing in Dr. Bouquin’s interview that would conflict with that approach

New Mexico has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) will soon introduce legislation that would allow states to use federal funds they’re receiving through Medicare, Medicaid, and other health care programs to build a universal single-payer system. Advocates are describing the bill as a “lifeline” for advocates:

It would create a mechanism for states to request federal funds after establishing their own health insurance programs…. It would, for the first time, create a system under which a Medicare-for-all program could be rolled out on a state-by-state basis. In California’s case, it would make coverage available to the roughly 7 million people now lacking health insurance.

“This is a huge deal,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica advocacy group. “This is a lifeline for people who want to create a Medicare system at the state level.”

The bill could warm the hearts of liberals who expressed frustration with the Affordable Care Act’s more moderate approach of building on the existing health care system and should also satisfy GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor has sought to differentiate his 2006 health reform from Obamacare by rejecting a federal prescription for reform and promising to “pursue policies that give each state the power to craft a health care reform plan that is best for its own citizens.”

The ACA creates state flexibility by granting waivers to states that meet certain coverage standards and a bipartisan group of lawmakers has offered legislation expanding the provision by allowing states with innovative health care solutions to opt out of certain provisions beginning in 2014. Romney, meanwhile, has pledged to build on the ACA’s flexibility and grant states to the ability to opt out of the law entirely.

McDermott’s measure would go even further and encourage states to repurpose federal funds to build a universal single-payer health system of their own. If Republicans are truly interested in states rights, they will back it in mass.

The vast majority of women in the U.S. are not using the most effective method of birth control available, according to a new study from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The study finds that the pill is significantly less effective at preventing pregnancy than long-lasting contraceptive methods such as the intrauterine device (IUD), building on earlier research that has drawn the same conclusion. In fact, women using IUDs or implants were a staggering 20 times less likely to get pregnant than women who used shorter contraceptive methods like the pill.

Yet few women in the U.S. currently use this type of contraception because IUDs are often very expensive — with co-pays costing hundreds of dollars — and rarely covered by insurance plans. As the study’s lead author, Dr. Brooke Winner, told Reuters:

Nationally, only about 5 percent are using long-lasting methods like IUDs and implants. We know one of the barriers to why they’re not using them more frequently is up-front costs. If [more] women were using these products nationally, there would be a very significant drop in unintended pregnancies, which would have far-reaching effects.

Although the birth control pill is the most commonly used contraceptive in the U.S., its effectiveness diminishes when women miss any of their daily pills or struggle to fill their monthly prescriptions on time. So if IUDs are significantly more effective at preventing pregnancy than the pill, doctors ought to be encouraging more women to use them. As another one of the study’s authors points out, “If there were a drug for cancer, heart disease or diabetes that was 20 times more effective we would recommend it first.”

Fortunately, President Obama’s new birth control regulation that expands access to birth control may help both doctors and women address this issue. Because the new policy would eliminate co-pays for contraceptives, IUDs would become a viable option for the women who currently can’t afford them — and, as the Guttmacher Institute has documented, removing cost barriers to contraceptive services greatly increases the number of women who choose to use the most effective methods.

The Senate Armed Services committee approved an amendment on Thursday to eliminate restrictions on abortion funding in military medical facilities. The provision would allow the military to fund abortion care in cases of rape and incest. Currently, the Defense Department only offers abortion services to military women when their lives are in danger with no exemptions for cases of rape or incest.

Supporters of the amendment, sponsored by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), said removing the restriction is a matter of fairness for military women:

Supporters argue that it would simply provide parity between civilians insured by the government and uniformed service members. [...]

“This is about equity,” Shaheen said. “Civilian women who depend on the federal government for health insurance — whether they are postal workers or Medicaid recipients — have the right to access affordable abortion care if they are sexually assaulted. It is only fair that the thousands of brave women in uniform fighting to protect our freedoms are treated the same.”

Shaheen’s provision would mirror the Hyde Amendment, which allows Medicaid funding for abortions in cases of rape and incest, so women with military-provided insurance plans would have the same health care options as civilian women with government health care plans.

And because nearly one in three women will be sexually assaulted while serving in the military, Shaheen’s amendment expands access to necessary services so that women do not have to pay out of pocket if they seek abortion care after being rape.

Now that the committee has approved the measure — with three Republicans voting for it — it heads to the Senate floor. When Shaheen introduced this amendment last year, anti-choice senators blocked it from being considered.

No matter one’s stance on contraception and abortion, most people feel sympathetic for a 9-year-old rape victim who is impregnated with twins by her step father, and is forced to undergo an abortion to save her life.

The Catholic Church, however, excommunicated those who helped rescue her.

In 2009, a 9 year old in Brazil had to have an emergency abortion after her mother brought her to the hospital for complaining about severe stomach pains and discovered the girl was four months pregnant. But after the procedure, instead of embracing the victim and offering to help the family, the Catholic Church excommunicated the doctor who performed the abortion and the girl’s mother.

The Church did not excommunicate the rapist:

The controversy represents a PR nightmare for the Vatican. The unnamed girl’s mother and doctors were excommunicated for agreeing to Wednesday’s emergency abortion yet the Church has not taken formal steps against the stepfather, who is in custody. Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, the conservative regional archbishop for Pernambuco where the girl was rushed to hospital, has said that the man would not be thrown out of the Church, because although he had allegedly committed “a heinous crime”, the Church took the view that “the abortion, the elimination of an innocent life, was more serious”.

The case has set off fierce debate in Brazil, where abortion is permitted only in cases of rape or medical emergency. Brazil is one of the most populous Catholic countries, but conservative attitudes in rural areas are strongly at odds with the relatively progressive public view of abortion in major cities.

While the circumstances are much more grave in this example, the same conflict of beliefs is now happening the United States: While 82 percent of Catholics support birth control use, the Catholic Church is suing to have it removed from required health care plans.

This case shows the extent to which some far-right leaders in the Catholic Church will go to fight against what they charge as morally reprehensible — even if the vast majority of their adherents don’t agree, or consider the charges flipped.