by Kathy Ostrowski, KFL Legislative Director |
Abortion-supporting groups continue to complain about the increasing number of life-protective legislation passed in the states, particularly Kansas. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute places Kansas as number four in the nation among pro-life states, with three of our bills from 2011 not in effect yet due to delayed court action.
Gov. Sam Brownback signed three pro-life bills into law in 2013.
Senate Bill 142 [“Civil Rights for the Unborn“] allows lawsuits to be filed in civil court on behalf of the wrongful death of an unborn child at any time in gestation and prohibits the filing of civil “wrongful birth” or “wrongful life” lawsuits seeking jackpot awards for parents who claim they would have aborted their disabled child had they known the of the condition prenatally. Recently, a jury in the state of Washington awarded $50 million dollars to parents because a laboratory did not detect a genetic defect. Such a lawsuit cannot be filed now in Kansas.
Senate Bill 199 establishes the exciting and first-of-its-kind Midwest Stem Cell Therapy Center at the University of Kansas, to increase the number of clinical grade stem cells available for use in patients treatments. The Center will create education modules for the public and medical personnel and create a global database resources for physicians and patients. Currently the ONLY successful medical stem cell treatments are those using tissue sources such as blood, bone marrow and umbilical cords. The Center bars the use of any fetal or embryonic tissue cells, which are obtained through the destruction of unborn children.
House Bill 2253 [Â “2013 Pro-Life Protections Act“] was two years in the making, with extremist liberal media whining all along the way. HB 2253
- strengthens medically accurate information made available prior to abortion from the state health department website.
- bans all tax-funded payment for abortion, tax breaks for abortion businesses;
- forbids abortions for reason of sex-selection; and
- declares that state public policy and budget priorities will reflect the fact that human life begins at conception, subject to U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
Planned Parenthood and the abortion clinic of Herb Hodes and Tracie Nauser (both in Overland Park) have sued to block HB 2253’s new requirement that abortion clinics feature a link to that information on the clinic’s website homepage. In addition, after failing to secure a legal injunction against the entire HB 2253, Hodes/Nauser attorneys did secure a block on one small provision in HB 2253 defining medical emergencies.
As usual, unable to win in the realm of public opinion, abortion interests run to the courts, hoping they will land activist judges to freeze laws from going into effect. That strategy did not work well for them this year. The office of Attorney General Derek Schmidt is managing the defense teams for all challenged pro-life laws. We expect resolution in our favor, although the pace has been especially slow on the three lawsuits filed in 2011.
For more information visit www.kfl.org