When the Kansas Department of Health (KDHE) put temporary abortion facility regulations for sanitation and patient safety in place July 1, attorneys for two Kansas City area abortion businesses persuaded federal Judge Carlos Murguia to block their enforcement. The one remaining Kansas clinic, Planned Parenthood of Kansas Mid-Missouri, filed, and then dropped, a suit as they were able to meet the requirements.

  Now that revised permanent abortion facility regulations are published and set to go into effect November 14, the clinics have announced they will re-file a suit.

   Bonnie Scott Jones, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), conceded to the Associated Press’s John Hanna that the KDHE revisions “made some important changes,” but argued “They’re still extremely burdensome in multiple ways, so they still do need to be challenged.”

   The attorneys for the state of Kansas and both abortion businesses have until November 28 to analyze the permanent regulations and take action with the federal court that issued the injunction.

   Jones tries to garner public sympathy on by insisting that the permanent rules “run roughshod over patient confidentiality.”

   But this is an argument Jones made for South Carolina abortion businesses fighting a similar state regulation of onsite inspections and detailed record-keeping– and she lost! In 2002, the 4th circuit court of appeals ruled state oversight doesn’t threaten privacy, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused review.