This GOPer Wants to Sabotage a Missouri Student’s Dissertation Because It’s About Abortion
A state lawmaker is trying to stop a graduate student at the University of Missouri from studying the effects of one of the state’s abortion restrictions, claiming that her dissertation violates state law and is an abortion marketing ploy.
In a letter to University of Missouri officials, state Sen. Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) argues that Lindsay Ruhr, a graduate student in the School of Social Work, is illegally using public funds to conduct her dissertation research on the state’s law that requires a 72-hour waiting period before a woman receives an abortion. Ruhr is using Planned Parenthood data to analyze the effects of the law on women’s decision making. In Missouri it is illegal for public employees and facilities to use state money towards “encouraging or counseling” a person to have an abortion not necessary to save her life.
“This is a concerning revelation considering the University’s recent troubling connections to Planned Parenthood,” wrote Schaefer. “It is difficult to understand how a research study approved by the University, conducted by a University student, and overseen by the Director of the School of Social Work at the University can be perceived as anything but an expenditure of public funds to aid Planned Parenthood.”
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