Federal Judge Orders Kan. To Restore Payments to Family Planning Clinic

October 19, 2011 — U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Marten on Tuesday ordered Kansas to resume distribution of federal family planning funds to the Dodge City Family Planning Clinic, the AP/Deseret News reports (Hegeman, AP/Deseret News, 10/18).

Last week, Marten granted the clinic's request to join a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri challenging a state law that blocks federal Title X family planning money to the organizations. The law, which was scheduled to take effect July 1, requires Kansas to allocate federal family planning funding to public health departments and hospitals, leaving no money for Planned Parenthood and similar groups. PPKM's lawsuit contends, among other things, that the law violates the Supremacy Clause, which prohibits states from imposing conditions of eligibility on federal programs that are not required by federal law.

In August, Marten granted PPKM's request to temporarily block enforcement of the law and ordered the state to resume allocating federal Title X family planning grants to Planned Parenthood clinics (Women's Health Policy Report, 10/12). An appeal is pending before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The state contends that it has a sovereign right to decide how to distribute federal grant money. The state also requested that the Dodge City clinic post a $100,000 bond, but Marten rejected the request. He said the request was "mean-spirited" because Kansas is aware that the clinic, whose employees have been working without pay, could not meet it.

Dodge City has said that without the Title X funding, it would be forced to close, leaving 650 mostly low-income patients without access to reproductive health care services. The Dodge City clinic also claimed it is "collateral damage" in a law meant to defund Planned Parenthood. By law, Title X money cannot be used to fund abortion services. Neither the Dodge City clinic nor the PPKM clinics affected by the law provides abortion care.

Kansas argued that patients would still have access to reproductive health care services elsewhere in the state. The state also maintained that the new law does not target Planned Parenthood because the statute itself does not mention the group or abortion (AP/Deseret News, 10/18).