skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Reproductive Health Group Fights Continued Funding Battles

play audio
Play

Monday, June 13, 2011   

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Planned Parenthood has survived the latest congressional attempts to strip its funding, but its battles are hardly over. The provider of reproductive-health services is taking on multiple states bent on blocking it from receiving federal family-planning dollars or state contracting services.

Taylor Ewing Johnstone, Planned Parenthood of Kentucky's director of education and community affairs, says the group is still working to separate fact from fiction in the abortion debate. Nationwide, Johnstone says, 97 percent of Planned Parenthood's health services to women and men have nothing to do with abortion.

"The vast majority of what we do is to just try and provide services so that people can have good reproductive health. A huge part of what we do is trying to prevent unplanned pregnancy and, therefore, the need for abortion."

Kentucky's Planned Parenthood clinics don't perform abortions, Johnstone says, and Planned Parenthood officials say federal law already bans government funding for abortions. In neighboring Indiana, the group is challenging a new law that bars the state from contracting with family-planning agencies if they provide abortions. The federal government has said the Indiana law violates Medicaid rules.

Planned Parenthood of Kentucky operates clinics in Louisville, Lexington and at the student health center at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. Those clinics saw nearly 10,000 visits last year - for birth control, breast exams, and tests for cervical cancer and sexually-transmitted infections, Johnstone says.

"There aren't any systems in place to provide the quality, affordable services that Planned Parenthood provides women. Without Planned Parenthood, people aren't going to be able to access the reproductive health and family-planning services that they need - for their health, their safety, for their families."

Last year, she says, the Kentucky centers served more than 3,000 people with incomes far below the federal poverty level.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
A report from the Tennessee HealthCare Campaign recommended the federal government needs to strengthen 340B drug pricing and other federal negotiation mechanisms to make needed medicines more readily available and less expensive for hospitals to purchase and administer. (Spotmatikphoto/AdobeStock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

A recent report examined how some rural Tennessee hospitals have managed to stay afloat despite financial challenges. The report includes interviews …


Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

Health and Wellness

play sound

Medicare and Medicaid are key sources of health coverage for many Americans and some people qualify for assistance under both programs. With lagging …


Organizations fighting wage theft said it harms affected workers and surrounding communities because the money withheld is not being circulated through the local economy. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

A mix of policy updates and staffing boosts has helped to put wage theft enforcement on the radar in Minnesota, and officials leading the efforts are …

Social Issues

play sound

New research shows more than six in 10 abortions in the U.S. last year were medically induced, and U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto - D-NV - is …

Social Issues

play sound

Missouri lawmakers are concerned with protecting people from the potential risks of the increasing accessibility of AI-generated images and videos…

Environment

play sound

A farm group is helping Iowa agriculture producers find ways to reduce the amount of nitrogen they use on their crops. Excess nitrates can wind up …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021