The “war on women” is a fiscal nightmare: Taxpayers on the hook...as Republicans gut family planning

[DonViejo]

The “war on women” is a fiscal nightmare: Taxpayers on the hook for millions as Republicans gut family planning

School buses in Kansas are being rerouted from decaying bridges while anti-choice policies eat up tax dollars

KATIE MCDONOUGH

Kansas has paid attorneys nearly $1.2 million to defend the flood of abortion restrictions the state has passed since 2011. As the Associated Press reported Tuesday, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced that the state paid a Lawrence-based firm nearly $800,000 in expenses related to multiple lawsuits, and had spent more than $400,000 on a Witchita firm defending a measure that cut off funding for Planned Parenthood.

Serving as the backdrop to the news is the state’s budget crisis, a $344 million hole driven by income tax cuts that Republican Gov. Sam Brownback signed into law in 2012. In response, pensions are being slashed, infrastructure is suffering and Brownback has proposed cutting spending on public schools and state universities by $45 million. Even Brownback’s fellow Republicans are telling him to stop living in “fantasyland” and call off his anti-tax experiment.

One would think, given the dire straits the state finds itself in, a pause from the Republican-controlled state Legislature’s assault on reproductive rights to avoid future lawsuits and an investment in family planning with documented cost benefits (and public health benefits, but that really goes without saying) would be one way to staunch the fiscal bleeding. But anti-choice lawmakers show no signs of slowing, and are still defending restrictions in court and currently considering a measure that could ban more than 90 percent of second trimester abortions. (Brownback has already signaled his support for such a bill.)

And more than just being expensive to defend, sweeping abortion restrictions that target public funding for family planning and affordable, reliable access to abortion and contraception cost the state millions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the services provided at publicly funded family planning health centers in 2010 in Kansas helped save the state $81,303,000 in public funds. “That accounts for savings from reduced maternity and birth-related costs, along with reduced costs related to miscarriage and abortion and savings related to [sexually transmitted infection] screening and cervical cancer prevention services,” according to the report.

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http://www.salon.com/2015/02/10/the_%E2%80%9Cwar_on_women%E2%80%9D_is_a_fiscal_nightmare_taxpayers_on_the_hook_for_millions_as_republicans_gut_family_planning/