Proposed Abortion Law Draws Heated Debate in Kansas House Committee
The new bill promotes pseudo science views on contraception, abortion, and reproductive health. As a Kansas taxpayer this bill is infuriating - if it does go to vote and pass it’s just going to get thrown out in court. It’s all so some legislators can grandstand for narrow fundamentalist interests that are out of step with average Kansans.
A bill forbidding the use of state money, tax credits or tax exemptions for abortion drew heated debate Wednesday in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee.
House Bill 2253 also would bar the state from discriminating against any health-care provider that declines involvement in abortion. It revises a law requiring doctors to give women certain information before terminating their pregnancies. And it includes language indicating that “the life of each human being begins at fertilization.”
Anti-abortion advocates said that government money should not be allocated for abortion procedures and that the bill provides general protection and rights for the unborn.
Michael Schuttloffel, executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, said the organization applauds the bill’s language. He contended that doctors who perform abortions do so solely for financial purposes.
“The state should not be in any support of any way to those who destroy innocent human life for money,” Schuttloffel said. “And make no mistake, that is what they do.”
The tax provisions the bill would impose would wreak havoc among patients, said Herbert Hobes, an Overland Park doctor in Kansas since 1970.
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