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Harding, Larmore
Kutcher & Kozal, LLP

By Jonathan Friedman
Associate Editor

January 23, 2017 -- Among liberals’ fears of Republicans' control of the federal government’s executive and legislative branches is the defunding of Planned Parenthood, which has a clinic on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, a Santa Monica resident, has no direct power to block this GOP effort, but she is making it a major issue of her activism.

Kuehl is the co-writer of a resolution placed on the agenda for the Tuesday board meeting calling for the county’s congressional delegation to support Planned Parenthood.

“At the county level, the loss of federal funding would directly impact some of our most vulnerable residents,” the resolution states.

It continues, “The proposal to defund Planned Parenthood would significantly curtail access to health care services for thousands of women, men and teens in Los Angeles County. Planned Parenthood provides crucial health care services and must be preserved.”

The resolution states that while Planned Parenthood is “a controversial symbol in the debate over abortion,” the operation accounts for only 3 percent of the services provided by the group and that federal money cannot be used for it.

While those points might be true, Kuehl is also a strong supporter of abortion rights.

She was a featured speaker last Thursday at the National Council for Jewish Women of Los Angeles’ (NCJWLA) event titled “Rally to Save Roe.”

“Tonight I stand with NCJWLA and other leaders to say no matter who's in the White House, choice is the law of the land in L.A.,” Kuehl wrote on social media.

As a State senator in 2002, Kuehl introduced a bill that was voted and signed into law and established a woman’s right to have an abortion in California.

Called the Reproductive Privacy Act, it says that the state “may not deny or interfere with a woman's right to choose or obtain an abortion” except in certain circumstances.

With this law on the books, supporters say abortion is a protected right in California regardless of what might happen at the federal level.

Kuehl’s resolution for protecting Planned Parenthood is assured passage by the County board that is majority female and Democratic.

The target of the resolution’s message is almost entirely made-up of Planned Parenthood and abortion supporters. Democrats sit in 14 of the 17 filled seats in the county’s congressional delegation.

Their Republican colleagues’ plan to end Planned Parenthood funding is a complex effort led by House Speaker Paul Ryan that includes prohibiting Medicaid reimbursements for services received there.

Kuehl’s resolution said this would be devastating because “an overwhelming majority of Planned Parenthood’s patients are low-income and recipients of federally-subsidized health care.”