WICHITA | A Dodge City clinic asked a judge Friday to order Kansas to release federal family-planning funding it has been withholding under a disputed new state law, saying the clinic's two employees haven't been paid since July and it will be forced to close within weeks unless it gets the money.
The Dodge City Family Planning Clinic also asked Wichita federal court Judge J. Thomas Marten for permission to join a Planned Parenthood lawsuit challenging the law. The clinic said the state has been withholding its allotment of the federal funding despite orders the judge issued in August suspending enforcement of the law pending the outcome of the case and telling the state to release Planned Parenthood's money.
The law, which took effect July 1, requires the state to allocate federal family planning dollars first to public health departments and hospitals, leaving no money for smaller clinics that rely on the funding. The only entities that would be affected are Planned Parenthood's clinics in Wichita and Hays and the unaffiliated Dodge City clinic. None of the three clinics provides abortion services.
"DCFP has never provided abortion services, but as 'collateral damage' under a law designed to defund entities that do provide them, DCFP has lost over 60 percent of its revenues, including the 40 percent of its budget that the Title X funds represented. It now faces imminent shut-down," the clinic contends in its court filing.
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http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/30/3177630/dodge-city-clinic-seeks-to-join.html#ixzz1ZUhlN5S8
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