Lawyers for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the attorney general want to prevent two abortion clinics from learning how the [licensing] rules were crafted, as well as the mind-set behind them, according to their court filings.
They are asking a judge to limit the scope of what is shared with the clinics’ lawyers to prevent overly broad requests that don’t lead to relevant evidence, the court documents say.
The state also has denied open-records requests from The Kansas City Star and The Associated Press, which asked for documents that could have shed light on the drafting of the rules.
These "licensing" requirements passed by the rabidly anti-woman legislature, with the equally rabidly anti-woman Gov. Sam Brownback all too happy to sign this crap into law, establish regulations for, among other things, lighting and bathrooms used in clinics that provide health care to women. And gosh, if the state sends in one of its investigators and finds out they've got the wrong light bulbs in there or the toilet paper isn't folded just right, well, shucks, they're just going to have to shut down that clinic. Because, you know, it's all about making it safe for women. And the governor just loves women so much, he appointed the attorney for the terrorist group Operation Rescue to serve on the Kansas Board of Healing Arts, which monitors and licenses health care professionals in the state. Because certainly he wouldn't have an agenda that just happened to deny licenses to women's health care providers, right?
And lest you forget, this is the same state that, under the former ethics-challenged attorney general and all-around asshole Phill Kline, sought to obtain the very private medical information of patients of Dr. George Tiller, by, among other things:
"staking out the clinic, following visitors and employees to their vehicles and recording automobile license plate numbers."
"Attempts were made to run the numbers through state agencies in order to identify the name of the driver," the complaint said.
Because it was sooooooo important for the state to invade its citizens' privacy back then. For their own good. But now, well, the state of Kansas is singing a different tune. Oh no, sorry doctors, but we just can't tell you how we decided your clinic should be shut down if you use the wrong hand soap because, well, that's private. And how can we possibly protect women put you out of business if we have to be all, like, open about it? And why is it any of your business how we concluded that any of these obstacles we've pulled directly out of our asses are actually going to make this already extremely safe medical procedure somehow safer?
You know, maybe the better question is, what isn't the matter with Kansas?
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Atrocities and victories below the fold.
The bad and the ugly:
- Unfuckingbelievable:
J.C. Penney is now selling a T-shirt for girls aged 7 to 16 that says, unabashedly, across its front: "I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me."
At least the brain trusts at J.C. Penney had the wisdom to pull the shirt.
- Mississippi takes a look at the proposed personhood bill, aka the Every Sperm is Sacred Amendment, that was too crazy for Colorado and says, "Hey, that sounds like a great idea!"
- And Virginia doesn't want to be left out of the crazy, so it's brewing up some special new regulations just for abortion providers:
On Friday, Virginia state health officials released draft regulations requiring existing state abortion providers to meet the physical plant requirements of hospitals. The new rules — the result of a TRAP (Targeted Regulations Against Abortion Providers) law passed by the General Assembly this spring — threaten to shut down Virginia’s abortion clinics, which only handle first-trimester abortions and are currently subject to the same regulations as physician practices.
The draft guidelines were formulated through an ‘emergency’ process that bypasses the normal public notice and rely on standards that were only “intended for brand new construction in the process of being built,” not existing clinics for whom compliance would be completely cost prohibitive.
And by the way:
These Guidelines are intended for brand new construction in the process of being built. These standards were never intended for existing health care structures and are not intended to apply to office-based surgical procedures. By relying on the 2010 Guidelines and imposing them on existing structures, the Virginia Department of Health would force substantial architectural changes by women’s health centers in order to be in compliance. Rather than protect women’s health, the regulations could endanger women because they could limit access to safe abortion by driving legitimate providers out of practice, which could place the health of women in Virginia in jeopardy.
So, in other words, the state's health officials used some nonsense "emergency" process to pass its new regulations when no one could object, giving themselves the power to shut down already-existing abortion clinics for failing to have the foresight to know what the building codes of the future would be. And if those clinics happen to fail to comply with the new regulations, and they happen to get their licenses revoked, and women's lives happen to be endangered because they no longer have access to health care providers, well, that's too bad. Those clinics should have thought, back when they were first built, about how they could comply with regulations that did not exist but would exist once the forced birthers took over the state. Serve's them and their would-be patients right. You wanna provide health care to women? Better invest in a time machine.
- Oh, and P.S.:
Now the Huffington Post is reporting there may have been a conflict of interest in McDonnell’s administration over the regulations. Matt Cobb, deputy secretary of health and human resources, helps lead the office that will interpret the regulations. He is also married to Victoria Cobb, a prominent anti-abortion lobbyist in the state who has spent years lobbying for clinic regulations like the ones just released.
- In case you missed it, Laura Clawson reported on some chilling words from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:
Ginsburg said that to practice for her Senate confirmation hearings, White House staffers in mock hearings grilled her on her work for the ACLU. During those mock hearings she told them: "There's nothing you can do to get me to bad mouth the ACLU."
Such grilling, though, did not happen, she said. She was confirmed 96-3.
"Today, my ACLU connection would probably disqualify me," she said.
And now for the good stuff:
- Fortunately, it's not all bad news out of Kansas. In fact, here's some great news for women: A federal judge has told the forced birthers in the legislature and the governor's mansion to suck it:
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Kansas to restore federal family planning funds to Planned Parenthood as the case is appealed. [...]
Earlier this year, the Kansas Legislature stripped Planned Parenthood of about $330,000 in the 2011-12 budget and redirected that money primarily to public health departments.
Planned Parenthood sued, and on Aug. 1, Marten temporarily blocked Kansas from enforcing the new budget provision. However, the state had not released the money.
This means that, for now, Planned Parenthood's funding is restored, which means it can continue to operate in Kansas and to provide health care to women.
- And in similar news, a federal judge in Texas tells Gov. Rick "the Constitution is unconstitutional" Perry and his fellow forced birthers in the legislature to suck it:
Texas cannot require women to view sonogram results 24 hours before undergoing an abortion, a federal judge in Austin ruled Tuesday.
The law, which would have taken effect Thursday, required physicians to describe in detail the size of the fetus and its organs and make available audio of any fetal heartbeat, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks, who was appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush, ruled those provisions violated the First Amendment by forcing doctors to engage in government-mandated speech.
- Oh, this is so going to give the teabaggers and fundamentalists a sad:
According to a recent Kaiser Health Tracking Poll conducted by Public Opinion and Survey Research Program, 66 percent of Americans agree with the federal government’s recent decision to include birth control in its list of preventative services.
- This is some much needed very good news:
Violence at abortion clinics has been down since George Tiller was murdered in 2009, and part of the reason may be that the Obama administration is doing more to prosecute anti-choice protesters who break the law. [...]
NPR reports that in the past two years, representatives from the Justice Department and the FBI have been meeting with abortion-rights groups and medical providers to explain what they do and their efforts to prevent violence against doctors and patients.
Obama's predecessor turned a blind eye to the terrorism that goes on at women's health clinics in this country, essentially refusing to direct or allow the Justice Department to enforce already existing law that regulates what protesters can and can't do. Thankfully, President Obama's Justice Department has been much more aggressive.
Ellen Gertzog, director of security for Planned Parenthood, says:
"There's been a substantial difference between this administration and the one immediately prior ... From where we sit, there's currently much greater willingness to carefully assess incidents when they occur and to proceed with legal action when appropriate."