Though Kansas state Sen. Barbara Bollier (D) is portraying herself as a moderate who is “bringing people together to expand healthcare,” a video interview obtained by the Washington Free Beacon in September shows her longstanding support for abortion industry giant Planned Parenthood.
Bollier said when she and her husband were married, the first group they donated to was Planned Parenthood.
“If you go look at Planned Parenthood donors, you’re going to see my husband and I were, when we were married, that was the first group that we gave to,” she said in the video:
Despite her attempt to appear as an independent moderate, Bollier, in fact, is an abortion rights supporter who has been endorsed by the author of the Obamacare contraceptive mandate, Obama-era HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Bollier, a retired anesthesiologist, is vying for the seat of retiring U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (R). She is hoping to beat U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall, a pro-life OB/GYN, to flip that seat for the Democrats.
Former Kansas governor and Obama-era HHS Secretary Sebelius endorsed Bollier a year ago, praising her for her efforts to expand Medicaid under Obamacare (Affordable Care Act).
It was Sebelius who inserted the contraceptive mandate into Obamacare, forcing most employers, including religious organizations like the Little Sisters of the Poor, to provide free birth control, sterilization procedures, and abortion-inducing drugs to their workers.
After years of struggle in the court system, the Little Sisters finally won a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in July, which upheld the Trump administration’s conscience protections rule and exempted them from Sebelius’s contraceptive mandate.
In an interview last week with the Shawnee Mission Post, Bollier was also forthright about insisting Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, be questioned about her faith during her confirmation hearings.
Bollier replied to a question about Barrett’s nomination:
Most people in America have a faith and are influenced by it. So, of course, she’s influenced by her faith. The question is, is she wanting to put her faith in play as a faith for all, and will that affect our law. And I think it is a question that needs to be asked of her – how she intersects her faith with the law.
During the Post’s interview, Bollier also did not reject the notion of repealing the longstanding provision known as the Hyde Amendment, which bars taxpayer funding of abortion in federal funding bills. She said she preferred not to deal with a “hypothetical” situation and that she would take a “wait and see” approach until a bill is brought forward if Joe Biden wins the presidential election.
Kansas-based pro-life organization Operation Rescue noted this week that, despite her far-left views on abortion, Bollier “has filled up Kansas mailboxes and airwaves with campaign rhetoric claiming she is ‘independent moderate’ who ‘leads with Christian values.’”
Operation Rescue reported it obtained a photo of Bollier, speaking at a Planned Parenthood event, and “wearing a ‘Pepto-pink’ t-shirt emblazoned with Planned Parenthood’s name and slogans.”
Troy Newman, the pro-life group’s president, said in a statement Bollier is doing her best to deceive Kansas voters:
Barbara Bollier is really a radical Planned Parenthood activist who supports late-term abortions that dismember babies in the womb. It is deceptive and insulting that she claims to embrace Christian values, yet completely disregards the Biblical teaching that supports the sanctity of human life. She is misrepresenting herself so she can win an election in this predominantly pro-life state, which would reject her soundly if they knew the truth about her extremist views on child-killing.
While in the Kansas legislature, Bollier had voted for bills that provided more taxpayer funding to public schools and promoted an expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare.
According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, Sebelius said she was also endorsing Bollier because she worked to repeal a tax law that eliminated the state income tax for about 330,000 businesses and aggressively lowered state income taxes on individuals. Sebelius said the elimination of the state income tax led to budget cuts.