It's a TRAP

From -- where else? -- Kansas, or, New Brunswick South.

Back in April, the state legislature passed a law directing the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to author new facility standards for abortion clinics, which the staunchly anti-abortion GOP governor, Sam Brownback*, signed into law on May 16. The law also requires the health department to issue new licenses each year, and it grants additional authority to health department inspectors to conduct unannounced inspections, and to fine or shut down clinics.

The department wasted no time in drafting the new rules, issuing the final version on June 17 and informing clinics that they would have to comply with the rules by July 1, as the Associated Press reported Wednesday. Peter Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, told the AP that inspectors were expected at their clinic in Overland Park, Kansas, on Wednesday. There are only three clinics left in the state: Planned Parenthood's, a clinic in Overland Park, and the Aid for Women clinic in Kansas City.

The new requirements require facilities to add extra bathrooms, drastically expand waiting and recovery areas, and even add larger janitor's closets, as one clinic employee told me—changes that clinics will have a heck of a time pulling off by the deadline. Under the new rule, clinics must also aquire state certification to admit patients, a process that takes 90 to 120 days, the staffer explained. Which makes it impossible for clinics to comply. And clinics that don't comply with the rules will face fines or possible closure.

Such legislation is dubbed 'Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers,' or TRAP. Ain't that perfect?

Time for this again.




Well, at least a few jobs might be created in renovating these clinics. . .

*Y'all remember Sam 'Rapists Have Rights Too' Brownback, doncha? Back in 2007, then Senator and presidential hopeful said:

“Rape is terrible. Rape is awful. Is it made any better by killing an innocent child? Does it solve the problem for the woman that’s been raped?” Brownback said, according to an AP report.

Politics makes strange, er, bedfellows

My, my. Maybe elections do change things.

JJ is having some fun with Sarah Palin's refusal to cave to her 'base' on an Alaska Supreme Court appointment conferred on a -- get ready to shrieeeek -- woman who served on the board of Planned Parenthood!

Just now, I ran into this hissy fit opinion piece by Flaming Fetus Fetishist and Catlick priest, Thomas Euteneuer, in which he excoriates Senator
Sam ('Rapist Fathers Have Rights Too') Brownback for -- get ready to shrieeeek again -- endorsing 'extreme abortion hack' Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as Health and Human Services Secretary.

Here is an extract of the flying spittle:

Senator Brownback's cowardly betrayal of his Catholic faith is even more damaging than his political permission for this renegade to take office.

The situation is atrocious. An extremist abortion hack (called the most pro-abortion governor in the nation by many), who falsely calls herself "Catholic," is given the opportunity to preside over the nation's healthcare system and normalize abortion even further; this radical is then endorsed by a US senator who also calls himself "Catholic" and who, many believe, wants her job back home when she becomes the abortion queen in DC.

With pro-lifers like Senator Sam Brownback, who needs pro-aborts?

There's much more, but I'll spare you.

The fundies have been shrieeeking over this nomination since it was first rumoured a couple of weeks ago. Not only did Abortion Queen (I prefer Vicious Abortion Crusader myself) Sebelius veto all the nuttier forced-pregnancy gang's attempts to recriminalize abortion in Kansas, but she once hosted an event at the governor's mansion that Dr. George Tiller (known to fundies as 'Tiller the Killer') attended! It's true! There are photos!

With all the shrieking and little foot-stomping going on, one wonders why more fundie heads don't explode.

But it's fun to watch, isn't it?