Republican Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback announced Tuesday at his State of the State address that he ordered the Kansas health secretary to stop all Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood.
“Trafficking of #babybodyparts is antithetical to our belief in human dignity,” Brownback said on Facebook Tuesday. “No more Kansas Medicaid dollars will go to Planned Parenthood.#defundpp #prolife.”
A Planned Parenthood lobbyist told the Associated Press that Brownback’s decision would cost Planned Parenthood clinics $61,000 annually. The organization plans to fight the decision.
“I am disappointed on behalf of the women who rely on us for health care that the governor has chosen to make them his political scapegoat,” Planned Parenthood lobbyist Elise Higgins said.
Brownback has taken several strong actions against abortion in the past. This latest move comes after a series of videos that showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing selling fetal body parts. The scandal over the videos has led to eight states trying to defund the organization.
“Gov. Brownback’s directive will terminate funding for Planned Parenthood, freeing up money for more widely available and more comprehensive low-cost healthcare options for women and families in Kansas,” Casey Mattox, senior counsel for the Christian legal group the Alliance Defending Freedom, said in a statement. “Taxpayer dollars should not go to organizations with a long track record of abusive and potentially fraudulent billing practices, that have been caught in authenticated undercover videos trafficking aborted babies’ body parts, and that have repeatedly failed to report the sexual abuse of girls.”
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