Kansas Anti-Abortion Bill Could Also Block Planned Parenthood Funding

WASHINGTON -- The Kansas state legislature passed a bill early Friday morning that bans insurance companies from offering abortion coverage in their general plans in most cases and manipulates the state budget to cut all Title X family planning funding from Planned Parenthood.

The new Kansas bill places Planned Parenthood at the very bottom of the priority funding list for family planning funding under Title X, a federal grant program that funds reproductive health services for low-income and uninsured patients. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri currently receives $334,000 a year in Title X funding, all of which it uses toward preventative health care, including pap tests, cancer screenings and STI testing and treatment, according to the health care provider.

The bill is part of a nationwide effort by the states to strip Planned Parenthood of government funding, which conservatives say is being used to pay for abortions, though the Hyde Amendment has outlawed federal funding for abortions for the past 30 years.

“The fundamental issue here is not -- although I wish it were -- the ability to further limit legal access to abortion, but rather who pays,” said Kansas House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lance Kinzer (R-Olathe).

Since Republican congressional lawmakers failed to defund Planned Parenthood during federal budget negotiations in April, state lawmakers have been busy figuring out ways to cut funding to the family planning provider without explicitly doing so. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) signed a bill earlier this week preventing Medicaid from contracting with “any entity that performs abortions” aside from a hospital, which effectively singled out Planned Parenthood.

The Kansas bill could leave thousands of rural and low-income patients without access to affordable health care. A 2009 report by the Guttmacher Institute found that a majority of low-income women consider a family planning center like Planned Parenthood their primary health provider. Moreover, Planned Parenthood estimates that 73 percent of its clinics are in rural or medically underserved areas, where patients have very limited options for affordable health care.

“This amendment will be disastrous for thousands of Kansans, particularly those living in rural counties," said Peter Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. "By effectively eliminating Planned Parenthood as Title X provider, patients may be forced to endure long wait time for live-saving cancer screenings and the possibility of having to drive hundreds of miles to the nearest low-income family planning provider,” he said. “This amendment is an attack on poor women, and it is repugnant.”

State legislatures across the country, including Indiana, Texas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, are considering or have passed bills that would cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, but not without resistance. The Indiana branch is fighting back against the state's defunding bill in federal court, and the Planned Parenthood of Kansas may now do the same.

“Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri is seriously considering all options -- including litigation -- to protect the health care needs of our patients, particularly low-income women and families,” Brownlie said in a statement. “There is no question: If the measure acts as intended, Planned Parenthood and thousands of patients will be unfairly punished.”

Comments

[bleucat democrat]

10:34 AM on 05/18/2011

what would be the reaction if limits were suddenly being placed on men's access to prostate screening?

oh wait ... there wouldn't be a reaction, because it isn't about men or women, or race ... it is about the poor. & the corporate feudalists (republicans) have made it crystal clear ... the poor are on their own ... unless they "make my bed, fry my chicken, or clean my toilet" - which case they may rate some tax-free, under-the-table, below minimum wage cash in hand to "invest" as they see fit.

[daft9009]

12:39 PM on 05/16/2011

No Abortion

[Cynthia Dudley]

02:08 PM on 05/16/2011

don't have one.

[bleucat democrat]

10:23 AM on 05/18/2011

no slavery

[2moons]

03:54 AM on 05/15/2011

Natural-born/naturalized adult human females are protected citizens of the United States. Conception is a radical redefinition of "Life". All Catholic gravestones acknowledge BIRTH and DEATH. It has something to do with emerging.

[ThinkinPerson]

11:52 PM on 05/13/2011

I say sorry to the women of Kansas and other states where these attacks on women are happening.

Whenever one hears 'state rights' - this is what they are talking about, the ability to take partisan tactics around the federal checks and balances, to foist on state citizens what we would not allow for federal citizens.

If one does not believe in abortion, don't have one or have your girlfriends, mistress or whomever have one, but, this approach is so obviously designed to force women who can't have a child, to have one. If R v W is not currently overturned, then how can this effective attempt to deny equal rights be permitted?

The woman may have changed her mind later in life, as everyone has the right, yet, she got to make the choice and then change her mind. Why should poor and rural women be harassed, now, attempts even at cutting private insurance coverage, what a waste of our energy, state or federal.

Really, is it or is it not legal in this country?

It must be to cover up for a lack of job creation proposals from these 'leaders.' After all, if you can't do the job, blame women, and their children, born or unborn.

[lilipilicious]

09:14 PM on 05/13/2011

I dont understand why republican­s are so set on destroying a woman's right to choose and ruin anything related to family planning. Why do they insist on having unwanted babies born epseically if they are not going to enact policies to provide them with a better life - i.e. good education, clean environmen­t, job prospects etc etc. They just want them to be born and then what? The more i think of it, the more this reminds of the Matrix where humans were grown to serve as batteries and thus sources of energy. That is the only reason I can see why republican­s would want all these kids: sources of cheap labor and tax revenue they can convenient­ly exploit.

The religion argument doesnt work either because Republican­s are a disgrace to religion and in fact, just like the extreme radical muslims, give it a bad name. Not to mention they are hypocrites­. They have no problem sending in 20 year olds to die for oil and geopolitic­al advantage, but they care about an unborn zygot? Are you kidding me? And here is Obama in all this? Going to another state dinner and cracking jokes with the Hollywood elite? So great he got bin Laden, but we still have tons of other issues to deal with pertaining to actually living human beings.

[Cynthia Dudley]

02:10 PM on 05/16/2011

You can't send soldiers to war on flimsy excuses to hide commercial interests if the only children available to become soldiers have adult, well-educated parents.

[lilipilicious]

02:23 PM on 05/16/2011

Exactly. For god fearing, Jaaaysus lovin republicans, humans have been reduced to duracell batteries: extract and work to death when they are young, then neglect and dispose off when they are no longer able to work. New proposals to dismantle medicare (and it WILL happen) are a good step towards that goal. Jesus would be so proud - if he was real.

[barjor]

08:09 PM on 05/13/2011

Something's rotten in the state of Indiana (and a few others). What was that line? "Daniels signed a bill ...preventing Medicare from contracting with any entity that performs abortions aside from a hospital (which effectively singled out Planned Parenthood)." If you ask me, an abortion is an abortion no matter where performed. Therefore, Medicare should not be allowd to contract with any hospital that performs abortions leaving only Christian hospitals where Medicare can do business. Hmmmm.

[zwyziec]

01:33 AM on 05/14/2011

good point.

[SueEll]

07:41 PM on 05/13/2011

We live in a country that doesn't have a level playing field. If a women gets pregnant and the father has no interest in being a father he can leave -- and there are no societal repercussions for him for having done so. I know, many men are sometimes the ones who are left with the child. I know, there are men who love and support their unwanted child. But there are many, many women raising children alone in an economy that needs two incomes just to make ends meet. It makes the prospect of a surprise pregnancy a bigger fear for a women.

[1TinSoldier]

08:39 PM on 05/13/2011

Intercourse, being the volitional act that it is, rape notwithstanding, leaves no room for a surprise pregnancy. It is not like you caught a cold, (random event.) There are precautions galore, wherein male and female can both use protection, and knowing that there is still a statistical uncertainty. Where is the surprise?
There is no such thing as a level playing field, never was, never will be. There WAS a time when societal repercussions were sufficient to make people think a little harder about what they were about to do. That is now considered old fashioned or worse by this enlightened world.

[Cynthia Dudley]

02:17 PM on 05/16/2011

There are precautions available IF you are informed about their existence (no reproductive classes in schools that have Republican leaning school boards), have access (laws permitting pharmacists to decide whether or not they sell contraceptives including condoms based on their consciences) and have access to proper gynecological care that inform you of medical conditions and medications that can mask the early signs of pregnancy (see conscience clauses). So sorry surprise pregnancies are possible because women aren't machines and fertility is messy. This is just one more wedge to ensure that women don't have access to proper healthcare and education so that they are once again totally dependent on the unreliable beneficence of men.

[bettestreep]

07:29 PM on 05/13/2011

Damn!

I should have bought shares in the wire hanger industry when I had the chance.

All these pro-life states are ensuring the share price is going to go through the roof!

[zwyziec]

07:27 PM on 05/13/2011

Many of you libs think that we repubs are anti-choice because it is an issue of morality.

Not true. We believe that god deigned to bless us with wealth, wisdom and granted us the charter to exclusively rule this great nation so that we can create an economy based on unfettered capitalism as the only clear path to prosperity.

Our corporate donors do not plan to ship jobs off shore and continue with the increasing expense of running multinational corporations. They want to move manufacturing jobs back to the US.

To do that they need a large, passive, humble, low-cost national work force to do those menial jobs like making tennis shoes now done in China, Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam. If this does not succeed in the US, then Somalia is our next choice.

This work force will be established by first eliminating public school unions, occupied mainly by women.

Then we will restrict their jobs in the private sector.

We will enlarge charter, religious and private schools exclusively for our children which will end public schools as we know them.

We are being successful in many states eliminating the minimum wage and child labor laws.

The women teachers will then remain at home to home school children using a curriculum that we and our Family Values Inc. donors will provide.

These children and those born through the elimination of abortion will become that low cost, national work force so essential for our corporations. Please help out.

[ElleKaye]

07:20 PM on 05/13/2011

This legislation has absolutely nothing to do with using federal funds for abortions. It's about making women's health care impossible or (at the very least) much more difficult to get. It will kill women because of the lack of testing and treatment. Cancer prevention??? Not in the state of Kansas. Not for women, at least. I guess there may be too many women in Kansas and this is an opportunity to thin the herd.

I know it's written in the Bible somewhere that Viagra will remain fully covered for Erectile Dysfunction in all insurance policies. The Zealots wouldn't dare change that!!!

[harrycratist]

07:18 PM on 05/13/2011

Typical Repub political masturbation...

I don't want to check when the last execution happened in KS,because I will get angry...

As I will be with the prohibitive gun laws,where 75% of the area of any city is a
"gun -prohibition "zone,including campuses...

As I will be with the socialised education& the...no measures against it..

Apoart from that,KS is supposedly ...a red state...

With .."reds " like them in KS,who needs "blue"...to get the blues

[PopeRatzo]

07:17 PM on 05/13/2011

Are women really going to let this happen? I mean, as a man I can be pro-choice all day long but at some point women are going to have to stand up and take the lead on this issue. I'll do everything I can to support pro-choice women, but if the women of North Dakota, Kansas, Indiana, etc are going to go along with these new laws taking away their rights to their own bodies, there's not a lot I can do.

You're going to have to lead the charge at some point. Unlike the anti-abortion forces, which are led mostly by men, this is an issue that affects women first and foremost.

Personally, if I was a woman and lived in one of these states, I'd think it was time to get out into the streets in very large numbers and stop this nonsense. Why isn't this happening?

[ghostgirl21]

07:49 PM on 05/13/2011

YUP. Also,tons of letters,phone-calls,and petitions to the Capital.
Keep them so busy,that they can't take it.

[ChiGuy]

07:14 PM on 05/13/2011

And still another state legislature demonstrates just how little they care about people most in need.

[Soylent Green is coming]

07:14 PM on 05/13/2011

When do you think they are going to go after our right to vote?

[barjor]

07:52 PM on 05/13/2011

They are trying. Some states want prospective voters to show official photo ID in order to qualify to vote, thereby effectively eliminating some poor or elderly.

[Resuna]

08:13 PM on 05/13/2011

Not sure if it'll be our right to vote, or our right to wear shoes first. Barefoot and preggers.. weee!!

[chancetay]

07:08 PM on 05/13/2011

Stop the madness! Stay out of a woman's reproductive decisions! Get down to business and out of our lives (women). No wonder states are going broke. State governments are not doing the jobs they were elected for. Therefore, they should lose their jobs.