Abortion

Kansas Legislature Brings Back Bill to End Medical Training in Abortion and Miscarriage Management

Anti-choice politicians in Kansas are once more trying to block med students from learning to do basic gynecological procedures.

Anti-choice politicians in Kansas are once more trying to block med students from learning to do basic gynecological procedures.

Last year, a bill that would have forbidden the states public universities from providing training for safe abortion care—training that would also be used in miscarriage management—nearly derailed the Kansas legislative session. The bill was eventually tabled out of fear that the state university would lose its accreditation for its OB-GYN program.

This year, anti-choice legislators have decided to take another go at it.

Anti-choicers claim that training medical students is the accusation at a state-based university in techniques of safe abortion care (or provide services for incomplete miscarriages) is the equivalent of a taxpayer “subsidizing” abortion. In the past the University of Kansas addressed the issue by making that section of training, one that is completely optional to med students, available only offsite at a local Planned Parenthood so that school grounds and medical centers wouldn’t be used.

Now, State Representative Lance Kinzer has introduced a House bill that will require that the portion of the training program be paid with “private” funding. “If they have a process set up where those folks are truly, completely, hermetically sealed off from any state dollars, then this bill doesn’t impact that and that is what they are working to do,” Rep. Kinzer told the Associated Press.

If Rep. Kinzer is to be believed, then at best he is proposing the legislature waste their time on a bill that does nothing. On the other hand, it could conceivably both put the OB-GYN accreditation in jeopardy again and possibly leave the women of Kansas with a new generation of doctors unable to perform a basic gynecological procedure that many will require for reasons beyond simply elective abortions. Rep. Kinzer seems remarkably comfortable with either scenario.