Posted on Sat, May. 23, 2009

Gov. Mark Parkinson restored money for family planning services at Planned Parenthood on Friday, rankling abortion opponents.

Parkinson used his line-item veto to eliminate a provision that would have rerouted the money to state and local health departments. He approved most of the wrap-up budget bill, which cut another $138 million from the state's $13 billion budget.

Planned Parenthood received about $300,000 in federal funding through the state last year. It helped clinics in Wichita and Hays provide services such as annual exams, birth control and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, said Peter Brownlie, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri.

Neither clinic provides abortions. Planned Parenthood performs abortions at its clinic in Overland Park, but has said this funding does not go toward the procedures.

"Eliminating funding for programs intended to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies does nothing to help reduce abortions in Kansas," said Parkinson, a Democrat.

Sen. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, had pushed for the amendment to reroute the money.

"I sincerely wish he would be more interested in standing up for the taxpayers of Kansas than for the special interests in Topeka," Huelskamp said of Parkinson.

Parkinson noted in his veto message that Planned Parenthood was eligible under the federal grant to receive the money and the state could not block the funds.

"Regardless of one's views on whether abortion should be allowed in this country, hopefully we can all agree that we should make every effort to prevent unplanned pregnancies," Parkinson wrote. "Access to affordable family planning services and contraceptives is critical if we are to continue reducing the number of abortions that occur in this state."

Kansans for Life executive director Mary Kay Culp contended it didn't matter if the two Kansas clinics receiving the money performed abortions or not.

"When a private organization like Planned Parenthood gets tax dollars, it frees up their private funds to pay lobbyists to troll for more tax funds, not to mention lobby against state abortion regulations," she said in a release. "And even if the money goes to their clinics that don't do abortions, again, it frees up the private money they have available for their clinics that do."

Legislators could try to override the veto at their June 4 adjournment ceremony, but House Speaker Mike O'Neal, R-Hutchinson, said the chance of that is "pretty slim" because it's often difficult to get all legislators to show up.

Parkinson used his line-item veto on two other provisions in the budget bill, Senate substitute for House Bill 2373.

He eliminated a $1.8 million allocation to Kansas Public Employee Retirement System contribution for school employees, saying it had been handled elsewhere in the budget.

He also reinstated financing of the Salina Aeronautical Center at Kansas State University's Salina Campus.

Contributing: Associated Press