The Obama administration is raising serious objections to a new Indiana law that cuts off state and federal money for Planned Parenthood clinics providing health care to low-income women on Medicaid.

The objections set the stage for a clash between the White House and Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, over an issue that ignites passions in both parties.

The changes in Indiana are subject to federal review and approval, and administration officials have made it clear they will not approve the changes in the form adopted by the state. ...

Mr. Daniels said the state law ensured that tax dollars would not subsidize providers of abortion. “Nonabortion services, whether family planning or basic women’s health, will remain readily available” from entities other than Planned Parenthood, Mr. Daniels said.

For years, federal law has barred the use of Medicaid money to pay for abortion except in certain cases of rape or incest or danger to the life of a pregnant woman.

The Indiana law goes much further. It prohibits state agencies from entering contracts with or making grants to “any entity that performs abortions or maintains or operates a facility where abortions are performed.” It also terminates existing state contracts with such entities. The law does not apply to hospitals. ...

Both houses of the Kansas Legislature have approved a 2012 budget bill that would redirect about $300,000 in federal family planning money from Planned Parenthood to state and local clinics. Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, is expected to sign it.

Labels: abortion, Indiana, Kansas

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A husband and wife who had their embryo implanted into a surrogate, who then gave birth to their child, moved one step closer to getting the wife named the legal mother rather than the surrogate.

The Indiana Court of Appeals on Wednesday reversed a Porter Circuit Court decision that denied the husband and wife's petition to establish maternity on behalf of the wife, who they say is the biological mother even though a different woman gave birth. The woman who carried the child, the wife's sister, supports the wife's petition to be named mother. ...

"Indiana law expressly permits a man to establish that he is the father of a child. It has no corresponding mechanism to allow a woman to show that she is the child's mother," stated the summary.

"To hold that the absence of the ability to statutorily establish maternity means that it cannot be done is to deny equal protection under the law to women in general, and biological mothers in particular, who, because of nature's cruelty, are deprived of the ability to conceive and carry a child."

Labels: Indiana, surrogate motherhood

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ISLAMORADA, Fla. -- It's easy to see why bookkeeper Linda Mortimer moved to the Florida Keys 20 years ago: the impossibly blue water, the year-round sunshine, a lifestyle so laid-back that every day is like a Jimmy Buffett lyric.

What Mortimer didn't anticipate was falling in love - and then getting divorced less than two years after taking her wedding vows.

"I discovered after we got married that my husband had been divorced four times," said Mortimer, as she finished a noontime burger while sitting at the bar at the Ocean View, a local party spot and Mortimer's place of employment.

"I was his No. 5. He didn't understand why I got so upset."

Divorce is as common in the Florida Keys as fresh grouper and cold beer. Census statistics released this week show that Monroe County - which includes the cluster of 1,700 islands floating off South Florida - has the second-highest proportion of divorced residents. A little more than 18 percent of the people living in Monroe County are divorced, second only to Indiana's Wayne County, which had 19 percent. Nationwide, 10.7 percent of people over 15 are divorced.

Three of the top 10 counties the divorced call home are in Florida - rural Putnam County in Northeast Florida and urban Pinellas County on the Gulf Coast are the other two. Indiana had a total of three counties in the top 10 as well. Along with Wayne County, Floyd and Madison counties made the list.

Newly released census figures show that while the number of unmarried people continued its 10-year climb, the ranks of married people in the United States rose by nearly 6 million last year, bucking a decade-long decline. The number of divorced people rose, but only slightly.

Among the other marriage- and divorce-related findings from the census data:

- The number of unmarried people climbed to about one-third of all Americans over 15.

- Oklahoma has the highest rate of people who have been married three times or more.

- Utah and Idaho tied for the youngest median bride age, at 23.5 years old.

Residents of Wayne County, Ind., don't see why their home should be the divorce capital of America. The water tower in Richmond, Ind., the county's largest city, welcomes visitors to "A Great All-American City." ...

Indiana is one of a handful of states that don't track divorce statistics. So it's hard to tell if the percentage is caused by a large number of divorces or a large number of young single people moving out of the county to attend college, or if it's just a statistical anomaly.

Divorce counselors say the economy could be partly to blame for adding more stress to marriages. Indiana has been hit hard by the collapse of the auto and manufacturing industries. Wayne County had an average annual unemployment rate of 6.8 percent in 2008 - when the census data was collected - a rate above the state average at the time but still below many other areas of the state and country. ...

Some folks in the Florida Keys are quick to say that it's not that people are actually divorcing in droves there - it's that divorced people come to the area to start new lives.

Labels: culture, divorce, Florida, Indiana

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