KS Senate prez derails pro-life bill with phony excuse

Sen. Steve Morris

What kind of double-speak from Senate President Steve Morris (R-Hugoton) is being reported without question by the Kansas press corps?

Despite Morris’ (debatable) claim today that “he will always fight for pro-life values,” he is using the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) propaganda as a pretext for NOT advancing a pro-life bill.

Morris has derailed Senate action on Hsub 313 (the Pro-Life Protections Act) and claimed that it was due to his concerns that it could negatively affect KUMC accreditation. This is a phony excuse.

Moreover, the KUMC language in Hsub 313 is the EXACT LANGUAGE that already exists in all of this year’s budget proposals in both chambers– including the versions Morris voted for!

Which raises the additional question, will Morris now also attempt to remove the KUMC language from the current budget proposals?

As Kansans for Life has repeatedly explained, accreditation of KUMC is not in jeopardy. 1996 federal legislation (the Coats amendment voted for by then-U.S. Senators Dole and Kassebaum) intentionally protects state med schools from losing accreditation when banning actual abortion participation.

That federal protection was created after the independent accreditation agency for medical schools kowtowed to abortion trade groups to demand all graduate medical training include actual abortion practice. (Read more here, here, here and here)

The Coats law was intended to counteract bullying of state legislatures by the accreditation agency and it focuses on states’ right to keep the entire graduate program out of abortion training,

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Kansas House passes Pro-life Protections Act

The Pro-Life Protections Act, House sub 313, passed the Kansas House 88-31 today on final action.  The bill would:

• end tax advantages for businesses that perform abortion,
• stop tax-funding for abortion including abortion training at KU Med school,
• ban sex-selection abortion,
• uphold the civil rights of the unborn throughout gestation to match their protection in criminal law,
• protect the rights of parents to accurate medical information about childbirth.

Kansans for Life executive director, Mary Kay Culp, commented, “This common sense bill simply insures women have access to medical information compiled by Kansas health department professionals, protects human dignity in civil law, prevents Kansas taxpayers from subsidizing abortion, and poses zero threat to medical school accreditation.

Abortion supporters have relied on the Huffington Post and other liberal outlets to spread falsehoods about the bill, and have launched several internet campaigns to shut down the webpages of our governor. The  ACLU has promoted Google ads for months (pictured), falsely telling the nation that, under this proposed pro-life law, Kansas will

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Federal “Coats” law trumps bogus accreditation threat to KU

In 1996, every state acquired federal protection from retribution for not forcing their medical students to participate in abortion.

The applicable federal law is the Coats amendment, voted for by both Kansas’ U.S. Senators at the time, Nancy Kassebaum and Bob Dole.

Coats reads, “In determining whether to grant a legal status to a health care entity (including a license or certificate), or to provide such entity with financial assistance, services or other benefits, the Federal Government, or any State or local government that receives Federal financial assistance, shall

deem accredited any postgraduate physician training program that would be accredited but for the accrediting agency’s reliance upon an accreditation standards that requires an entity to perform an induced abortion or require, provide, or refer for training in the performance of induced abortions, or make arrangements for such training, regardless of whether such standard provides exceptions or exemptions.”

In other words, there is no possible accreditation threat to the medical center of the University of Kansas (KUMC) from section 2 of the Pro-life Protections act (HB 2598)– and now in the state budget

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