Kansas Lawmaker Will Work Next Year to De-Fund Abortion, Planned Parenthood
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 31, 2009
Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) — A Kansas state legislator says he will work in next year’s legislative session to de-fund abortion and the Planned Parenthood abortion business. Sen. Tim Huelskamp announced yesterday that he will continue his previous efforts to cut off any state taxpayer funds the group receives.
The Republican told LifeNews.com that Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the United States and promotes abortion as a means of “family planning” and routinely uses taxpayer dollars to fund their operations.
Huelskamp led the effort to remove the funding in last year’s legislative session. His measure passed the legislature, but was vetoed by Governor Parkinson.
“This is the right thing to do,” Huelskamp said. “Organizations that perform abortions and fail to report sexual abuse of young girls should never receive taxpayer subsidies. This flies in the face of basic Kansas values.”
Huelskamp also believes that cutting funding to groups like Planned Parenthood will help establish a responsible threshold for spending public dollars.
Planned Parenthood has received approximately $1.2 million over the last four years in Kansas, including a dramatic 23% spike in funding from 2008 to 2009 at the same time that revenues were sharply in decline.
“Continuing to fund Planned Parenthood is every bit as embarrassing as funding ACORN. We need to get serious and let them know that they are no longer welcome at the public trough," he told LifeNews.com.
Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, told LifeNews.com after the Parkinson veto that she was sorely disappointed by the decision. She said Parkinson’s move made it so he has a clear pro-abortion record.
"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.
Meanwhile, other pro-life advocates may push forward with new rules prohibiting the opening of a new late-term abortion business in the wake of the shooting death of late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller.
The next session of the Kansas state legislature begins on January 11.
Related web sites:
Kansans for Life – https://www.kfl.org
Kansas governor – https://ksgovernor.org
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