Kan. Law Blocking Family Planning Funds Remains on Hold

July 2, 2012 — A federal judge on Friday continued an injunction blocking Kansas from enforcing a law that cuts off family planning funding to clinics in the state, the AP/Kansas City Star reports (AP/Kansas City Star, 6/29).

The law, first passed in 2011, requires Kansas to allocate federal funding to public health departments and hospitals, leaving no money for Planned Parenthood and similar groups.

A lawsuit by the Dodge City Family Planning Clinic and Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri 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, 6/27).

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten blocked the law a year ago, and the clinics sought an extension of the injunction after the Legislature re-enacted the measure this year.

According to the AP/Star, the extension of the injunction will enable the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to consider both the 2011 and 2012 statutes when it rules on the suit (AP/Kansas City Star, 6/29).