To the editor:

I want to thank the governor for vetoing the bill that would have closed three of the five abortion clinics in Kansas, thus restricting a woman’s right to choose.

Abortion clinics are currently held to the same standards as all other clinics. If the Board of Healing Arts is not doing its job of holding doctors accountable and inspecting clinics then a comprehensive bill that covers all minor surgery clinics is needed, but not a bill that singles out abortion clinics to stricter regulations and overburdening licensing fees.

Our governor is not pro-abortion. This is evident in that she supported three of the four anti-choice bills in the Legislature this session, including the “fetal extraction bill” which forces minors to hand over their fetal tissue to the attorney general. She also supported the bill which made it illegal for anyone under the age of 17 to get an abortion in another state that does not have a parental consent law, because it is illegal for minors to get an abortion without consent in Kansas.

The controversial veto, I might add was upheld by Republicans and Democrats and in the past few years this bill has been vetoed by both a Republican governor and a Democratic governor. The reason for this is that this bill has nothing to do with protecting women’s health.

Josie Thorp,

Lawrence