By Charlotte Cooper
On top of these restrictive regulations, a string of suspicious incidents at Planned Parenthood clinics across the country has given the organization reason to believe that anti-abortion activists are targeting it in a new organized sting operation, the HuffPost reported April 23.
At the same time, the organization continues to be openly targeted by state lawmakers.
Ohio lawmakers are considering a budget provision similar to the one that caused five of six Planned Parenthood in Texas to lose funding, Bloomberg Businessweek reported April 23. Planned Parenthood says that the move would leave poor women without access to preventive health care.
Lawmakers in the New Hampshire Senate, meanwhile, are taking a swipe at funding for six Planned Parenthood of Northern New England centers and several other rural clinics,The Associated Press reported April 23. A health commissioner warned the Senate that the bill could imperil the state’s $1.4 billion annual state-federal Medicaid program. About half the funding is federal.
Last week, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin suspended non-surgical abortions in response to a new state law that makes it harder for women to have the procedure, MSNBC reported April 21.
In Mississippi, Gov. Phil Bryant signed a law that will add restrictive regulations on the state’s only abortion clinic, starting July 1, The Associated Press reported April 17.
At least 75 bills to restrict abortion passed one state legislative chamber in the first quarter of 2012, according to the Guttmacher Institute, The Washington Times reported April 15. Last year, a record of 127 abortion-restricting bills passed one chamber.
