TOPEKA, Kansas — During his State of the State address on Tuesday, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback announced that he has ordered the state Department of Health and Environment to defund the abortion giant Planned Parenthood, making Kansas the eighth state to do so.

“In 2011, I signed legislation stopping most taxpayer funding from going to Planned Parenthood. The time has come to finish the job,” he declared.

The move is reportedly due in part to a series of undercover videos released last year by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) that show officials with Planned Parenthood from various locations across the country nonchalantly discussing the strategic removal of baby bodily organs so that they can meet the demand of scientific corporations.

“Planned Parenthood’s trafficking of baby body parts is antithetical to our belief in human dignity,” Brownback stated, noting that he has consequently directed Kansas Department of Health Secretrary Susan Mosier to “ensure that not a single dollar of taxpayer money goes to Planned Parenthood” for Medicaid. He also asked legislators to submit a bill that would enshrine the move into state law.

“We must keep working to protect our most innocent Kansans, the unborn,” Brownback declared. “We have become the shining city on the hill and the champions of life. … Kansas was founded on the principal that every life has dignity, that every life has beauty, that every life has value.”

The governor, a Roman Catholic, also posted about his move on Facebook, reiterating that “[t]rafficking of ‪#‎babybodyparts‬ is antithetical to our belief in human dignity. No more Kansas Medicaid dollars will go to Planned Parenthood. ‪#‎defundpp‬ ‪#‎prolife‬”

Planned Parenthood currently receives approximately $61,000 in Medicaid reimbursement by the state each year.

Elise Higgins, a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, said that the group will fight Brownback’s efforts.

“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,” she told the Associated Press.

But others applauded the move.

“Not one more penny should go to Planned Parenthood, a scandal-plagued abortion business that does not provide comprehensive health care services for women,” said Casey Mattox of the religious liberties group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in a statement. “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.”

As previously reported, Planned Parenthood outlined in its annual report released at the end of December that the organization performed 323,999 abortions nationwide during the 2014-2015 fiscal year. The organization was founded in 1921 by Margaret Sanger, which was originally known as the American Birth Control League. She later changed the name as some found it offensive.

“Birth control appeals to the advanced radical because it is calculated to undermine the authority of the Christian churches,” she wrote in a 1920’s newsletter. “I look forward to seeing humanity free someday of the tyranny of Christianity, no less than capitalism.”

Sanger, who was a staunch advocate of eugenics, also wrote in “The Pivot of Civilization,” “Constructive” eugenics … shows us that we are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all—that the wealth of individuals and of states is being diverted from the development and the progress of human expression and civilization.”

“The emergency problem of segregation and sterilization must be faced immediately,” she said. “Every feeble-minded girl or woman of the hereditary type, especially of the moron class, should be segregated during the reproductive period. Otherwise, she is almost certain to bear imbecile children, who in turn are just as certain to breed other defectives.”

Become a Christian News Network Supporter...

Dear Reader, has ChristianNews.net been of benefit and a blessing to you? For many years now, the Lord has seen fit to use this small news outlet as a strong influential resource in keeping Christians informed on current events from a Biblical worldview. With much compromise and many falsehoods in modern-day Christianity, we strive to bring you the news by keeping Christ and His word in focus. If you have benefited from our news coverage, please prayerfully consider becoming a Christian News supporter by clicking here to make a one-time or monthly donation to help keep the truth of God's word widely and freely published and distributed. May Christ continue to be exalted through this work!