Indiana, Kentucky join Planned Parenthood's western alliance
Source: Associated Press
Indiana, Kentucky join Planned Parenthoods western alliance
By RICK CALLAHAN
February 1, 2019
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Planned Parenthoods 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 womens 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 Kentuckys Legislature that would ban abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.
They feel like other parts of the country have a tougher row to hoe and theyre looking forward to supporting this effect, Charbonneau said of the donors. ... The political environments in Indiana and Kentucky have been particularly oppressive and theyve made getting health care to low-income people in the states difficult.
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