TOPEKA, Kansas — The abortion giant Planned Parenthood has filed a lawsuit against officials in Kansas for cutting the group from the state Medicaid reimbursement program.
“This action challenges the unlawful, unwarranted and politically motivated decision,” the suit, filed in federal court on Wednesday, states.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment had sent a letter to Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri on Tuesday advising that is participation in the Medicaid program would end as of next week.
As previously reported, Gov. Sam Brownback outlined in his State of the State address in January that he had directed Secretary Susan Mosier to “ensure that not a single dollar of taxpayer money goes to Planned Parenthood” for Medicaid following the release of a series of undercover videos by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP). The videos showed 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.
“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.
But Laura McQuade, president of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, told reporters on Tuesday following the filing of the suit that “[a]ll of the grounds for the termination for Medicaid are entirely bogus and unfounded.” The abortion giant claims that the undercover videos by CMP were selectively edited to smear Planned Parenthood.
“This is an outrageous attempt by Gov. Brownback to punish the women and men who have freely chosen Planned Parenthood for their health care for decades,” McQuade said. “Denying Kansans on Medicaid access to Planned Parenthood services flies in the face of the clear federal guidance that protects the rights of patients to see their provider of choice.”
Brownback spokesperson Eileen Hawley said in a statement that Kansas has sufficient cause to remove Planned Parenthood from the Medicaid program.
“The governor called for this action in his 2016 State of the State address in order to protect the unborn and support a culture of life in Kansas. Planned Parenthood has been fully informed of the reasons for this decision, including their own refusal to submit to a lawful inspection of their premises,” she said.
The state had noted in a letter to Planned Parenthood earlier this year that its Overland Park location had refused in December to allow the Health Department complete an inspection into its handling of waste.
Last month, federal Medicaid Director Vikki Wachino sent a letter to all 50 states, suggesting that they are prohibited from defunding organizations such as Planned Parenthood unless the facilities cannot provide covered services or if their Medicaid billing is improper.
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.”
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