Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) -- Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson made his first decision on abortion as the new governor of the Midwestern state on Friday. He restored hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business that the state legislature had agreed to delete from the state budget.

Parkinson struck language from the budget to give $250,000 back to Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri despite the current adverse economic conditions.

"Regardless of one's views on whether abortion should be allowed in the country, hopefully we can all agree that we should make every effort to prevent unplanned pregnancies," Parkinson said in his veto message.

Although Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion business and does late-term abortions at its Overland Park facility, it claims none of the taxpayer funds will be used to pay for abortions.

Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, was sorely disappointed by the decision. She said Parkinson's move made it so he has a succinct by clear pro-abortion record now.

"We were hoping he would be better than Kathleen Sebelius, but evidently he's not," she said. "It means the state will continue to give tax dollars to an organization to prevent pregnancy that stands to make money when they don't do that job."

Parksinson claimed he worried it may also break federal law to take the money, some of which is federal funding, away from Planned Parenthood.

However, Culp said approving the budget without the Planned Parenthood funds would not have put the state in jeopardy because the money was redirected to legitimate medical efforts.
"It reprioritizes it. It doesn't break the rules," she said.

The Overland Park facility is embroiled in a case involving charges that will head to the Kansas Supreme Court next week alleging that some of the late-term abortions were illegal and that it falsified medical records to cover up that fact.

Knowing the allegations, State Senator Tim Huelskamp announced an effort last December to end taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood in Kansas.

"Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the nation, has come under increasing scrutiny for alleged criminal violations, including illegal late-term abortions and failure to report sexual abuse of young girls," he told LifeNews.com.

"Despite these allegations of impropriety -- and more than a hundred criminal charges – this year Kansas taxpayers paid out nearly $300,000 to subsidize this entity," he added.

Following the veto, Troy Newman, the president of Kansas-based Operation Rescue, told LifeNews.com that Huelskamp's common-sense proviso would have redirected the Kansas money instead to respectable health care providers.

"Parkinson has decided to ignore and the overwhelming majority of the legislature and the will of the people it represents to continue to fund a Planned Parenthood abortion organization that evidence shows is more than likely engaged in criminal conduct," he said.

"Parkinson now officially joins the ranks of corrupt abortion collaborators that continue to protect this predatory abortion business at the risk of women and girls. By putting his political agenda above the welfare of the people, he has shown that he is not fit for public office," Newman added.

ACTION: Show your disappointment by contacting Governor Parkinson at: http://www.governor.ks.gov/contact.htm

Related web sites:
Kansans for Life - http://www.kfl.org
Kansas governor - http://ksgovernor.org
Operation Rescue - http://www.operationrescue.org

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