Exciting news out of Kansas this week–in addition to its defunding of Planned Parenthood, the state also passed a new law giving the Health Department enhanced powers to regulate abortion clinics. Kansas only has 3 abortion clinics–two independent clinics and the large and infamous Planned Parenthood Comprehensive Health clinic in Overland Park–and if the Health Department is up to it, they could shut down all of them under the new law:
Kansas launched an inspection Wednesday of a Planned Parenthood clinic in the Kansas City suburbs, ahead of a health department decision on whether the state’s three abortion clinics will be allowed to continue operating after June.
Three inspectors from the Department of Health and Environment arrived in the morning for what officials at Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri said was a two-day review of operations at its clinic in Overland Park. The department has told the state’s other two clinics, also in the Kansas City area, that they’ll be inspected by the end of the month.
The department is inspecting the clinics under a law enacted this year mandating health and safety standards and a special licensing process for abortion providers. The agency drafted the regulations in the weeks after Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, a strong abortion opponent, signed the law last month and finished its latest version Friday.
Abortion rights supporters are suspicious of the licensing process because of Brownback’s stance and because anti-abortion groups and legislators pushed the law. Officials at the Planned Parenthood chapter fear none of the three clinics will get licensed, forcing them to shut down July 1, when the law takes effect.
The Planned Parenthood clinic in Overland Park is infamous to pro-lifers because of the extensive trafficking in the body parts of aborted children that Mark Crutcher’s organization Life Dynamics documented there in 2000. Federal funding for human fetal tissue research has been skyrocketing under the Obama administration, so it’s quite possible that the Overland Park clinic, which does abortions up to 21.6 weeks, is still involved in fetal trafficking to meet the demand of researchers. The Overland Park clinic is also the Planned Parenthood clinic investigated by Phil Kline during his time as Attorney General and District Attorney. Who knows what those Health Department investigators will find?
