Kan. Family Planning Clinics Seek Injunction To Prevent Funding Cut Off

June 27, 2012 — Kansas family planning clinics this week asked a federal judge to issue an injunction to prevent the state from enforcing a law that would cut off their funding, the AP/Topeka Capital-Journal reports.

The Dodge City Family Planning Clinic filed a request on Tuesday, after a similar move by Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri a few days earlier. PPKM operates family planning clinics in Hays and Wichita (AP/Topeka Capital-Journal, 6/27).

The law is the same as a 2011 measure that requires Kansas to allocate federal family planning funding to public health departments and hospitals, leaving no money for Planned Parenthood and similar groups.

In August, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Marten granted PPKM's request to temporarily block enforcement of the 2011 law and ordered the state to resume allocating federal Title X family planning grants to its clinics. After the Dodge City Family Planning Clinic joined the suit in October, Marten also ordered the state to resume its funding.

The 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 (Women's Health Policy Report, 10/19/11).

The latest filings come as the clinics seek to expedite the case, since the 2011 case is already pending before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to the AP/Capital-Journal (AP/Topeka Capital-Journal, 6/27).