Anti-abortion activists are in a twit because a new Planned Parenthood facility in Louisville, Kentucky, started offering abortion services on Jan. 21. Now they plan to protest the facility this Saturday because adding a second abortion provider in the state is just—Too. Much. Access.
Nate Robertson, a minister and anti-abortion activist spearheading Saturday’s rally, said another abortion facility in Louisville is not needed.
Kentucky previously had only one abortion provider, a private clinic in Louisville that also operates a part-time clinic in Lexington.
But the new facility has temporarily stopped providing abortion services after the state's newly elected tea party governor, Matt Bevin, accused Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky (PPINK) of "openly and knowingly" violating the law by operating an unlicensed facility.
Planned Parenthood officials have released documents showing they were simply following the process set out by Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear when they applied for the license on Nov. 19, before Bevin took office.
Emails last year between a Planned Parenthood lawyer and the top state official then in charge of licensing health clinics show that the official told the organization it must open without the license in order to get one.
That's because the state won't issue a final license until a state inspector makes an unannounced visit to the facility and inspects it after it has opened for business, Maryellen Mynear, the former inspector general with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, said in an email to Planned Parenthood lawyer Carole Christian.
Mynear said Planned Parenthood must be providing "services for which it seeks licensure" in order to be inspected and receive a license. [...]
"I realize the inherent conflict in this approach, but it is indeed the process by which the (inspector general) has historically issued licenses and is a reasonable application of all statutes and regulations read in conjunction with one another," according to Mynear's reply email of Dec. 1.
Yeah, so Planned Parenthood follows the procedure outlined by state officials at the time of its application and now a right-wing governor says they "openly and knowingly" cheated. Just more dubious claims against the organization and another blow to women's health.
Smear campaigns against Planned Parenthood have become the norm these days.