Indiana, Kentucky join Planned Parenthood's western alliance

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Planned Parenthood's affiliate overseeing Hawaii and three western states announced Friday that it was adding Indiana and Kentucky, a first-of-its-kind consolidation based not on geography but on reallocating resources to fight new abortion restrictions in the Midwest and South.

The arrangement by the women's health nonprofit places Indiana and Kentucky under a Seattle-based affiliate that currently oversees clinics in Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho and western Washington.

Chris Charbonneau, the CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands, said her group has an annual budget of about $70 million. She said its donors wanted to help Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky.

In recent years, that Indianapolis-based group has faced the legal costs of challenging far-reaching limits on abortion rights sought by Republican lawmakers in both states — including a proposed bill before Kentucky's Legislature that would ban abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.

Read more: https://magicvalley.com/news/state-and-regional/indiana-kentucky-join-planned-parenthood-s-western-alliance/article_e5ef4890-0a37-5e9f-8274-347e242ed6ae.html

Cross-posted in the Kentucky Group.