Kari Ann Rinker is a former State Coordinator and Lobbyist for Kansas NOW. She has testified in numerous legislative hearings on issues ranging from the State ERA, Domestic Violence, Voter ID and Reproductive Rights. Since the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, Kari Ann has devoted much of her time toward grassroots activism and legislative action for women’s access to safe and legal abortion. Kari Ann been a visible force in both Kansas and National media speaking out on women's issues effecting Kansas. She has appeared on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and the Lawrence O'Donnell Shows, NPR and been quoted in the Los Angeles Times. She traveled to Nebraska to help defend the clinic of Dr. Leroy Carhart in 2009 and again to his clinic in Maryland 2011. She has a B.S. in Organizational Management and Leadership from Friends University and a Masters of Public Administration and a certificate in Nonprofit Management from Wichita State University.
The possible loss of KU Med School’s accreditation is not an “unintended consequence”…it is very much intended and in the same spirit that the Foxx Amendment was passed in the US House last year.
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The most sweeping anti-choice bill in the nation, a 68 page monstrosity currently being considered by the Kansas House Federal and State Affairs Committee, is about to become the center of showdown over the legitimacy of Kansas University Medical School programs.
The Nebraska Legislature considers a bill that would give a third party the right to use deadly force to protect a fetus. In other words, the right to kill an abortion provider.
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The Governor’s flippant comment suggesting these women “work somewhere else” is a verbal strike against women’s right to participate as equals in society and access a full range of preventive healthcare, while their male counterparts retain a full range of preventive care.
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The Operation Rescue dance on Dr. Tiller’s grave continues in Kansas. This time in the form of a celebratory jig performed in their perceived triumph over an administrative judge’s ruling issuing an order of revocation of the license of Dr. Ann Kristen Neuhaus.
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It looks like the South Dakota legislature has built upon its last unconstitutional, litigated piece of anti-choice legislation and in its infinite wisdom passed an even more egregious piece of anti-choice legislation.
Whether related to the topic of contraception or not, the “Obamacare” contraceptive boogey man serves its function as a multi-purpose political tool in red state debates. In Kansas right now, there are different so-called conscience bills pending across red state America.
Popular distaste for “personhood” bills has been evidence in Colorado and Mississippi. So, Oklahoma legislators are seeking the same end result through a different strategy: legislation that lays the groundwork for potential prohibition of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, oral contraception, and IUDs, and the granting of fatherhood rights at conception.
This week, the Kansas House Federal and State Affairs Committee heard the largest, most expansive abortion restriction bill in the nation. HB 2598 is a 68-page piece of legislation, that manages to cobble together many of the most extreme restrictions from abortion legislation currently under litigation in three other states. And yet when I stood up to oppose it, far-right legislators claimed I “went too far.”
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So-called “Personhood” is sexy. It’s flashy. It gets attention. That is why “Personhood” is something that Kansans for Life is avoiding.
