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Judge lets Dodge City clinic join funding lawsuit

23.11.11

A judge Tuesday allowed a Dodge City medical clinic to join Planned Parenthood's lawsuit challenging a Kansas law that strips both entities of federal funding for family planning services, ruling that the state offered little more than rhetoric to back its arguments.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten also told the Dodge City Family Planning Clinic Inc. it could immediately file a request to restore its federal funding, and the clinic filed that paperwork less than an hour later. Marten gave the state until Thursday to respond.

The Dodge City clinic wants Marten to force Kansas to release federal money the state has withheld since the law took effect July 1. The clinic has said its two employees haven't been paid since then and it would be forced to close within weeks unless the funding is restored.

The clinic contends its closure would leave about 650 patients in southwestern Kansas without access to reproductive health care services. About a third of its low-income patients receive free medical services and another third qualify for a 50 percent discount using the federal family planning funds that target low-income patients. The clinic has received the funding for 35 years.

Source: BusinessWeek