Category: ‘Legal Issues’

Kansas abortion clinic defunding law faces legal test

August 3, 2011 Posted by Chris

According to Planned Parenthood, a new Kansas statute taking away funding from its Kansas branches is the result of anti-abortion campaigns despite the fact that none of its federal funding compensates abortion services. Planned Parenthood has gone to court in a bid to ask the federal judge to block the implementation of the statute. The family planning service provider is arguing that a ruling would impact thousands of low income patients receiving STD testing, cancer screening, pregnancy testing, and contraception services.

Although Planned Parenthood provides Kansas state abortions solely from its Overland Park clinic, it also maintains two other clinics in Wichita and Hays. Planned Parenthood claims that these two other clinics operate at a loss and provide only non-abortion reproductive health services. The organization says if the state statute goes into effect and strips federal funding, the Hays clinic will have to close and low-income individuals will be affected. (more…)

PP and the States

July 16, 2011 Posted by Chris

Pro Choice EscortI hate the fact that issues of defunding and abortion are prevalent, that they take over all other topics that should be our main focus or concern. But with GOP lawmakers in state after state, Indiana, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Kansas, defunding Planned Parenthood in their 2011 legislative sessions and those in states like New Hampshire, Texas, or Ohio planning similar measures, there is simply no way around it. Republicans always take the same path: First they claim that there is a need to defund Planned Parenthood over 3% abortion services with the weak argument that federal dollars are going to abortion services. Next, they make it almost impossible for clinics to get licensing. Now, we have come to a phase where they deny PPs ability to dispense birth control and antibiotic­s. But this is serious stuff and women, especially lower-income women, need the support primarily for their personal health and not because they are “anti-life”. (more…)

Planned Parenthood’s Indiana Medicaid issue

July 14, 2011 Posted by Chris

Sydney Ken Wilber Reading Groupphoto © 2006 Tim Mansfield | more info (via: Wylio)I have written about the fact that states such as Texas, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire have recently moved to disallow the use of state Medicaid funds for abortions. Indiana is the hub of all this legislative activity since it attracted the ire of the Obama administration in its decision to strip taxpayer funding for abortions within its Medicaid program. President Obama’s administration has threatend to hold back billions of Medicaid funding to the state of Indiana if it doesn’t continue to fund Planned Parenthood, the premiere family planning/abortion provider in the United States. (more…)

North Carolina Defunds PP

June 20, 2011 Posted by Chris

James Madisonphoto © 2008 Cliff | more info (via: Wylio)Not that we need any more evidence that PP is under attack. We know that we are fighting an uphill battle in a conservative country that rejects women’s rights and endangers female health with the hyper-ideological catchall “pro-life”. What I just don’t understand is why we are still talking about what the Founding Fathers would have done. We live in the 21st century, are we going back to Newton to discuss the future of science? Unfortunately that is exactly the content of debates today. The North Carolina senate just decided to defund Planned Parenthood, making it the third state after Indiana and Kansas. That is one thing. Money is scarce, times are bad. The problem is that conservatives are continuing to frame the debate in terms of an ideological battle between those that preserve Americas freedom and those that want to undermine it. Kinda sad, if you ask me. (more…)