The Republican presidential candidate that many had previously hailed as the most moderate GOP contender signed a bill Sunday to prohibit the Ohio state health department from contracting with entities that perform or promote abortions.

John Kasich, the Governor of Ohio and presidential hopeful, fulfilled his promise to defund Planned Parenthood, even though the healthcare provider is not specifically named in the bill. However slashing funds is one way that lawmakers plan to get rid of the healthcare provider, which just happens to refer patients to and provide abortion services.

The law will prevent roughly $1.3 million in funding from the Ohio State Health Department from going to STD/HIV testing, general health screenings, and prevention of violence against women. 

@CNN @JohnKasich pic.twitter.com/1xZb2a42uX

— Venisha (@Venishhhha) February 22, 2016

It should be noted that state and federal laws already prohibit taxpayer funds from going towards abortion services, except in the cases of rape, incest, and “therapeutic” abortions (medical diagnosis to save the mother via abortion).

@CNN @JohnKasich How about letting the women in this country dictate things?

— Bomber Doobie (@Bomber_Doobie) February 22, 2016

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards responded to the news, not surprisingly, unhappy and disappointed.

“It’s clear Kasich has no regard for women’s health or lives, and will stop at nothing to block health care for the tens of thousands of Ohioans who rely on Planned Parenthood,” Richards said in a statement. She added that it would have “devastating consequences for women across Ohio.”

While many see Kasich as the great moderate of the election season, his voting record when it comes to abortion says otherwise. As the Huffington Post has reported:

Just months after becoming governor, Kasich signed a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy unless the fetus is nonviable. In 2013, Kasich signed a budget that stripped roughly $1.4 million in family planning funds from Planned Parenthood, required abortion providers to perform ultrasounds on patients seeking abortions and allowed rape crisis centers to be stripped of their public funds if they referred victims to abortion providers, among other measures. The budget also blocked public hospitals from entering into transfer agreements for medical emergencies with abortion clinics, threatening clinics with closure if they couldn’t get a private hospital to enter into those agreements. Because private hospitals often have religious affiliations, this arrangement often wasn’t possible.

In all, nearly half of Ohio’s abortion clinics have closed since Kasich took office.

Kasich’s gubernatorial office spokesman Joe Andrews responded in a statement with:

The Ohio Department of Health has at least 150 other sub-grantees and contractors for the affected grants and projects addressing such issues as new born babies, infant mortality, expectant mothers, violence against women, and minority HIV/AIDS,” the statement said. “ODH will reallocate funding from ineligible providers under the new law to other currently eligible providers, ranging from local health departments and community organizations to hospitals and universities. These organizations will be required to submit proposals in order to receive funding.

The issues that arise from Kasich’s signing of the bill go past clinics not having proper funding. This goes as far as to cause issues with insurers and hospitals. As Cleveland.com reports, “…the Columbus Public Health department said it would be unable to contract with any Columbus hospital because they either provide abortion services, contract with abortion clinics, or refer patients to abortion services.”

In addition, Texas is a great example of what can happen when you remove a major women’s health service from Medicaid plans. Recently, women in Texas stopped using the most effective forms of contraceptives, and the birth rate rose (on the taxpayer’s tab), according to a study done by researchers from the University of Texas at Austin. According to researchers, the number of claims for long-acting contraception dropped by more than a third and births paid for by Medicaid shot up by 27 percent.

Of course, there is no way of saying definitively that this will happen in Ohio as well, but it would not come as a shock. As Guttmacher Institute’s Elizabeth Nash stated, “It’s one of the states people look to, to see what the next restriction is going to look like.”

Julia Bryant

Julia Bryant is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street from Howard County, Maryland. She is a junior at the University of Maryland, College Park, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Economics. You can contact Julia at JBryant@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In case you haven’t noticed, Planned Parenthood has become the new bogeyman on Capitol Hill–arguments over its funding had, until very recently, the potential to spark a government shut down. This summer, a group called the Center for Medical Progress released heavily edited, now debunked videos that insinuated that Planned Parenthood did a bunch of awful things, including selling fetal tissue for a profit. Despite the fact that these videos were deceptively edited, and investigations of Planned Parenthood have determined that the non-profit didn’t act in any illegal ways, conservatives on the Hill have latched onto a witch hunt aimed at the organization. Yesterday, Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood’s president since 2006, attended a hearing hosted by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. There she was subjected to hours of inappropriate questioning, interruptions, and bullying by some of the House Republicans present. There were so many ridiculous moments to chose from, but here are the top five from yesterday’s hearing.

5. Richards’ Exchange with Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)

Shortly after the first video was released, Richards put out an apology:

Our top priority is the compassionate care that we provide. In the video one of our staff members speaks in a way that does not reflect that compassion, this is unacceptable and I personally apologize for the staff member’s tone and statements.

As Richards explained during the hearing, she was apologizing for the fact that she believed the conversation that was taped by the Center for Medical Progress was in an inappropriate context and setting. But Jordan, like a dog with a bone, fixated on the fact that she apologized for “statements” and demanded to know exactly which statements she was apologizing for. Despite Richards explaining again and again that she was apologizing for the overall situation, Jordan refused to take that answer. Here’s the exchange:

Richards answered his question many, many times. But it wasn’t good enough for Jordan, and that’s really kind of the whole point of the hearing that happened yesterday. It wasn’t about getting answers, it was about berating Richards and showing conservative supporters that the reps were willing to be “tough” on Planned Parenthood. It’s nice that Jordan was able to make that so abundantly clear from the get-go.

4. Questions about Richards’ Salary

At one point Richards was subjected to questioning about her salary by the chair of the committee, Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). Now Richards is paid a fair salary for her job as head of an absolutely enormous non-profit, a bit over $500,000. Keep in mind that Planned Parenthood is the 38th largest non-profit in the United States, running it is no easy task, and here in the United States it’s important to pay people competitive salaries for the jobs they do.

Yet Chaffetz saw that as ammunition against Richards, and by extension, Planned Parenthood. Some of the Democratic Reps defended Richards on this front, including this powerful speech from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), but it still stood out as an inappropriate line of questioning.

3. Richards Could Barely Get a Word In

Normally, when people are brought to sit in front a group of Representatives for questioning, they are allowed to answer the questions. Unfortunately that wasn’t true in this case, as Richards was interrupted by pretty much every Republican questioner on the panel, yet another indication that many of them found what they had to say significantly more interesting than what she was saying. Slate’s XXFactor put together a truly fantastic/infuriating rundown of every single time that Richards was interrupted, but the top prize goes to Representative Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) who admitted that he didn’t want to actually hear the answers to his questions when he said told Richards “This is my time. This is my time. So don’t interrupt it.” The audio is below, and it’s pretty clear that Gosar wasn’t there to listen:

2. Everyone Freaked Out About Mammograms

One of the big criticisms about Planned Parenthood brought out at the hearing was that the organization does not provide mammograms, despite being an organization that does provide a relatively inclusive array of health services. Over and over, the reps questioning Richards tried to insinuate that because Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide this one particular service, it renders all of the other things it does useless.

The thing is, mammograms require very specific tools and trained professionals and for providers be accredited by the American College of Radiology. They take place in hospitals or radiology centers, because those are the places that are equipped to provide them. Planned Parenthood shouldn’t be condemned for not providing services that it is not equipped to provide, moreover the organization works with some radiology centers to provide mammograms to low income women when possible. A lack of mammogram services on site does not mean that all of the other services it provides are no longer useful, legitimate, and very much needed. But nice try, Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) who attempted so very hard to imply that’s the case.

1. Really Just the Worst Chart

By now, most of you have probably heard of or seen the chart that Chaffetz displayed, that stood contrary to pretty much all logic and math.

Whatever you think of Planned Parenthood, this is a terrible and dishonest chart http://t.co/9p4OwETuoX pic.twitter.com/VtLhy3ayOj

— Vox (@voxdotcom) September 30, 2015

The red line is supposed to portray the number of abortions conducted by Planned Parenthood; the pink line cancer screening and prevention services (these are not the only services that Planned Parenthood provides, but the two that were cherry-picked for the purposes of this chart.) The chart is attempting to show that overall number of abortions performed has gone up from 2006 to 2013, and the number of cancer screening and prevention services has gone down over the same time period. But the chart isn’t anything even remotely to scale, as it makes 327,000 look like it’s a larger number than 935,573. That is obviously incorrect.

Chaffetz then asked Richards to explain the chart. She couldn’t, because she’s presumably a sane human being, and then explained to Chaffetz:

My lawyers have informed me that the source of this is Americans United for Life which is an anti-abortion group so I would check your source.

To which Chaffetz paused and replied: “Then we will get to the bottom of the truth of that.”

Yes Chaffetz, please do get the “bottom of the truth” of who made this truly horrendous and non-sensical chart.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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