TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) The Kansas attorney general’s office paid outside lawyers more than $644,000 to defend anti-abortion laws enacted last year.
The office says it paid more than $328,000 as of Friday to Foulston Siefken, a Wichita firm helping defend a budget provision denying federal dollars for non-abortion services to Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood has filed a federal lawsuit against the measure.
The attorney general’s office paid more than $200,000 to Thompson, Ramsdell Qualseth, of Lawrence, to help defend health and safety regulations for abortion providers. Kansas City-area physicians challenged the rules in federal court and then in state court.
The same law firm also received more than $116,000 for work on a federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against a law restricting private insurance coverage for elective abortions.
