Kansas defunds Planned Parenthood
- 05/13/11 12:50 PM ET
The Kansas state legislature passed a budget late Thursday night that strips state funding for Planned Parenthood.
The new budget strips about $334,000 in federal Title X funding for the organization, according to Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. The nation's largest abortion provider is a lightning rod for religious conservatives, but it argues that eliminating government support for family planning and prevention will only hurt poor women.
"It is outrageous that Gov. [Sam] Brownback will sign a budget bill that will undermine women's health and deny Planned Parenthood from providing preventive health care through the Title X program," President and CEO Peter Brownlie said in a statement. "Thousands of Kansans are now at risk of losing access to basic, preventive health care."
The organization, he added, is "seriously considering all options — including litigation" to overturn the decision. Planned Parenthood has already sued Indiana after that state passed legislation stripping it of Title X funding; the next court date to seek injunctive relief is June 6.
The House of Representatives has passed similar legislation, but it died in the Senate. Similar efforts are also under way in state legislatures in Oklahoma, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
No Kansas abortion clinic has met the state’s new licensing rules, raising the prospect that by Friday, Kansas will be the only state where women cannot get an abortion.
On Tuesday, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said the clinics inspected so far hadn’t met the new standards approved by the Legislature earlier this year.
Kansas has only three abortion clinics, all in the Kansas City area.
One, in Wyandotte County, has already been told it would not be licensed. The local president of Planned Parenthood said Tuesday that his Overland Park clinic still hadn’t been approved for a license.
But the stakes were raised Tuesday when a father-daughter physician team from a third clinic went to federal court to stop Kansas from imposing the new rules.
The lawsuit, brought by Herbert Hodes and his daughter Traci Nauser, alleges there was an organized and deliberate effort by Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration “to close abortion clinics by any means necessary.”
“At every step …, KDHE implemented the licensing provisions of the act in ways that made it impossible for existing medical practices to obtain a license by the effective date,” the lawsuit contends.
A spokesman for the governor could not be reached for comment Tuesday night. A spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment declined to comment on the clinic’s lawsuit.
Hodes and Nauser run the Center for Women’s Health, an obstetrics and gynecological clinic in Overland Park that also provides abortion services.
State health inspectors were scheduled to inspect the Hodes’ clinic today, but the clinic canceled the review, saying it would not get a license anyway.
The lawsuit contends the licensing rules are overly burdensome and impose a “number of ambiguous and unclear requirements” on the clinics.
“As a whole, the temporary regulations impose burdensome and costly requirements that are not medically necessary or appropriate and that are not imposed on Kansas medical providers performing other comparable procedures,” the lawsuit charges.
Tuesday afternoon, state health regulators said the abortion clinics they’ve inspected so far have “failed to meet the minimum health and safety standards” in the new law. The agency refused to identify the clinics that were inspected.
KDHE said it will continue to work with applicants and provide follow-up inspections if it appears that the areas of noncompliance can be worked out.
The state last week notified Aid for Women in Kansas City, Kan., that it would not be licensed. The clinic was not inspected, but the decision was based on its application.
Planned Parenthood in Overland Park was inspected for 20 hours over two days last week.
Peter Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, said his agency has not been licensed yet. He reiterated that the inspection results indicated his agency will be in full compliance on or by Friday.
Brownlie said he has had communications with the state, but would not disclose details.
The new licensing law requires clinics to be inspected twice a year, including one unannounced review. It also spells out standards for operations, supplies, facilities and medical procedures.
Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, said the law was needed to ensure the safety of women. She said the law was never intended to shut down abortion clinics and pointed out that a similar law is in place in South Carolina.
“Without any oversight, women really are in danger,” Culp said Tuesday.
She said women who are malpractice victims are less likely to go public after an abortion than if they had undergone a procedure like knee or shoulder surgery.
The regulations total 36 pages. Among other things, they require any physician performing an abortion to have clinical privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic. They also require each facility to have drugs and equipment to deal with a medical crisis such as a heart attack or an allergic reaction to medication.
They also contain requirements for the building, including dressing rooms for staff that are equipped with a toilet, a sink and a place to store clothes. The procedure rooms are also required to be at least 150 square feet and the recovery area must be at least 80 square feet per patient.
The rules also set required temperatures of 70 to 75 degrees for the recovery rooms and 68 to 73 degrees for procedure rooms.
The regulations were sent to providers on June 17, less than two weeks before the Hodes’ clinic was scheduled to be inspected and only days before Planned Parenthood was scheduled to be inspected.
Bonnie Scott Jones, one of the lawyers representing the physicians, called the timeline “absurdly short.”
“If you operate a medical practice, there’s no way that in two weeks you’re going to be able to transform the physical environment,” said Jones, counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Jones also said it was “quite shocking” that the department outright refused to grant a waiver from any of the rules.
“They weren’t even willing to hear the requests we wanted to make,” Jones said.
“That’s a really extreme process for a state agency applying new regulations that it just came up with and gave to the regulated entity.”
Should Kansas be left without an abortion provider, the nearest location for a woman to undergo a first-trimester abortion would be in Columbia, Jones said. The nearest location for a second-trimester procedure would be in St. Louis, she said.
The new budget strips about $334,000 in federal Title X funding for the organization, according to Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. The nation's largest abortion provider is a lightning rod for religious conservatives, but it argues that eliminating government support for family planning and prevention will only hurt poor women.
"It is outrageous that Gov. [Sam] Brownback will sign a budget bill that will undermine women's health and deny Planned Parenthood from providing preventive health care through the Title X program," President and CEO Peter Brownlie said in a statement. "Thousands of Kansans are now at risk of losing access to basic, preventive health care."
The organization, he added, is "seriously considering all options — including litigation" to overturn the decision. Planned Parenthood has already sued Indiana after that state passed legislation stripping it of Title X funding; the next court date to seek injunctive relief is June 6.
The House of Representatives has passed similar legislation, but it died in the Senate. Similar efforts are also under way in state legislatures in Oklahoma, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
Kansas says abortion clinic failed inspections
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On Tuesday, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said the clinics inspected so far hadn’t met the new standards approved by the Legislature earlier this year.
Kansas has only three abortion clinics, all in the Kansas City area.
One, in Wyandotte County, has already been told it would not be licensed. The local president of Planned Parenthood said Tuesday that his Overland Park clinic still hadn’t been approved for a license.
But the stakes were raised Tuesday when a father-daughter physician team from a third clinic went to federal court to stop Kansas from imposing the new rules.
The lawsuit, brought by Herbert Hodes and his daughter Traci Nauser, alleges there was an organized and deliberate effort by Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration “to close abortion clinics by any means necessary.”
“At every step …, KDHE implemented the licensing provisions of the act in ways that made it impossible for existing medical practices to obtain a license by the effective date,” the lawsuit contends.
A spokesman for the governor could not be reached for comment Tuesday night. A spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment declined to comment on the clinic’s lawsuit.
Hodes and Nauser run the Center for Women’s Health, an obstetrics and gynecological clinic in Overland Park that also provides abortion services.
State health inspectors were scheduled to inspect the Hodes’ clinic today, but the clinic canceled the review, saying it would not get a license anyway.
The lawsuit contends the licensing rules are overly burdensome and impose a “number of ambiguous and unclear requirements” on the clinics.
“As a whole, the temporary regulations impose burdensome and costly requirements that are not medically necessary or appropriate and that are not imposed on Kansas medical providers performing other comparable procedures,” the lawsuit charges.
Tuesday afternoon, state health regulators said the abortion clinics they’ve inspected so far have “failed to meet the minimum health and safety standards” in the new law. The agency refused to identify the clinics that were inspected.
KDHE said it will continue to work with applicants and provide follow-up inspections if it appears that the areas of noncompliance can be worked out.
The state last week notified Aid for Women in Kansas City, Kan., that it would not be licensed. The clinic was not inspected, but the decision was based on its application.
Planned Parenthood in Overland Park was inspected for 20 hours over two days last week.
Peter Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, said his agency has not been licensed yet. He reiterated that the inspection results indicated his agency will be in full compliance on or by Friday.
Brownlie said he has had communications with the state, but would not disclose details.
The new licensing law requires clinics to be inspected twice a year, including one unannounced review. It also spells out standards for operations, supplies, facilities and medical procedures.
Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, said the law was needed to ensure the safety of women. She said the law was never intended to shut down abortion clinics and pointed out that a similar law is in place in South Carolina.
“Without any oversight, women really are in danger,” Culp said Tuesday.
She said women who are malpractice victims are less likely to go public after an abortion than if they had undergone a procedure like knee or shoulder surgery.
The regulations total 36 pages. Among other things, they require any physician performing an abortion to have clinical privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic. They also require each facility to have drugs and equipment to deal with a medical crisis such as a heart attack or an allergic reaction to medication.
They also contain requirements for the building, including dressing rooms for staff that are equipped with a toilet, a sink and a place to store clothes. The procedure rooms are also required to be at least 150 square feet and the recovery area must be at least 80 square feet per patient.
The rules also set required temperatures of 70 to 75 degrees for the recovery rooms and 68 to 73 degrees for procedure rooms.
The regulations were sent to providers on June 17, less than two weeks before the Hodes’ clinic was scheduled to be inspected and only days before Planned Parenthood was scheduled to be inspected.
Bonnie Scott Jones, one of the lawyers representing the physicians, called the timeline “absurdly short.”
“If you operate a medical practice, there’s no way that in two weeks you’re going to be able to transform the physical environment,” said Jones, counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Jones also said it was “quite shocking” that the department outright refused to grant a waiver from any of the rules.
“They weren’t even willing to hear the requests we wanted to make,” Jones said.
“That’s a really extreme process for a state agency applying new regulations that it just came up with and gave to the regulated entity.”
Should Kansas be left without an abortion provider, the nearest location for a woman to undergo a first-trimester abortion would be in Columbia, Jones said. The nearest location for a second-trimester procedure would be in St. Louis, she said.
To reach Brad Cooper, call 816-234-7724 or send email to bcooper@kcstar.com.
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