Kansas Licenses Lone Abortion Clinic

Kansas yesterday licensed just one of its three abortion clinics, after speculation that it could become the only state with no abortion providers. The clinics had little time to meet new regulations—dictating everything from equipment to room size—that were issued in June and approved yesterday, the New York Times reports. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, the largest clinic in the state, won the license.

That clinic's president called the new regulations “burdensome and unnecessary," but abortion opponents insist, as one activist says, that "the government has a right to demand a certain amount of protection for patients." The other two providers in the state will seek an injunction against the law in federal court today. If they end up closing, Kansas will be the third state to offer just one abortion clinic. South Dakota and Mississippi are the others. (More Kansas stories.)