On AOL.com this week, the Internet-based loan company LendingTree offered “Bad credit options” and a $425,000 loan for only $1,376 a month. And Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, declared, “Bad Credit? Call Today. Refinance or Tap into Your Home’s Equity” in an online ad from its Full Spectrum Lending Division.

No-money-down mortgages and subprime loans that cater to people with spotty credit are quickly disappearing as lenders tighten their standards in response to a rise in foreclosures. But you wouldn’t know that if you looked at the ads that some banks and loan companies have placed on the Internet and in newspapers, including this one, often right next to the very stories chronicling the meltdown in the mortgage industry. So what’s with the mixed messages?

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From here:

This [“South Carolina re-elects Mark Lawrence as bishop”] is one ugly chapter in the troubled life of the Episcopal Church that needs to be brought to an end. There is no more worthy a candidate for bishop than [the Rev. Mark] Lawrence. The people of South Carolina have chosen well, and they know it. We pray they will soon have the bishop of their choice in their midst.

The governing body of one of our state university systems is considering a plan to arm professors. In response to the Virginia Tech shootings on 16 April this year, the Nevada Board of Regents has proposed sending professors on a training course, and deputising them so that they can carry firearms on campus legally. “God, guns, and guts make America great”, as the old bumper sticker had it.

Why do we Americans like guns so much? Because we think we live in Mogadishu. Somalis won’t lay down their weapons because they know that if they give up their firearms, but others don’t, they’ll be shot by members of rival clans. If you live in a failed state you can’t count on the government to protect you; so you rely on God, guns, and guts.

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In response to this story, we have the following from Greg Griffith:

– Archbishop Akinola was in Virginia last week, when the statement was released. He and Minns spent much time together. It is entirely possible that +Akinola was using Minns’ computer to compose his statement. It is more likely that +Akinola was dictating the statement to Minns. It is far more likely that +Akinola was giving shape and form to the statement, while relying on Minns for the exact wording… in other words, exactly what a trusted confidant and Assistant Secretary of the Global South Steering Committee is for. Surely Jim Naughton, as a diocesan communications director who has no doubt ghost-written more than a few of John Chane’s statements, understands how that works.

– Any notion – asserted both by [Father]Jake and [Jjim] Naughton – that Martyn Minns “pulled one over” on Archbishop Akinola is absurd. There is simply no way the Anglican Church of Nigeria released a statement that was not approved by +Akinola.

– The idea – also asserted both by [Father]Jake and [Jim] Naughton – that Peter Akinola doesn’t possess the intellectual acumen or the command of the English language to compose “Agonizing Journey,” is equally absurd, and tinged with more than a touch of racism. The archbishop is a highly educated man (master’s degree from Virginia Theological Seminary) and is quite articulate.

The important point about the article is that the author has raced to a conclusion without evidence. If I have a word document on my computer written by Bishop Salmon with changes in it (if the Word software indicates so), the changes were made on my computer but by whom they were made is still not known. Indeed, on a number of occasions Bishop Salmon has called me and made changes to the document with me on the phone. He was speaking, and I was typing. Yes, you guessed it, this has happened on a number of occasions. I can think of several where both Bishop Salmon and Bishop Skilton made multiple changes to the final text, which of course they both then signed. Every change came through my computer, but was made by them because they were concerned about every word. This is called care and collaboration, and it happens all over the church all the time–KSH.

Update: Ekklesia [U.K., not to be confused with the U.S. version] has a piece on this which goes even farther over the top.

Further Update: Don’t miss the press release from The Venerable AkinTunde Popoola, Director of Communications for the Church of Nigeria, below in the comments (#41)

ACK’s decision to spread its wings to America follows months of consultations with other Anglican Church provinces around the world opposed to gay relations.

The 72-member global Anglican communion is facing a split over gay rights. This follows moves in some countries to appoint gay and female priests. African branches have vehemently opposed gay clergy. In 2003, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican body in the US named Rev Gene Robinson who confessed to be gay, bishop of New Hampshire. The action was met with angry disapproval from church followers around the world opposed to gay relationships.

The division pits wealthy provinces notably in the US and Canada in North America against another group concentrated in Africa and Asia.

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At least from the mid-twentieth century, traditional gender and sexual mores have been coming “unstuck” in Europe and North America. Legal and social prohibitions have been lifted–first against divorce, then divorce and remarriage; against extra-marital sexual activity and cohabitation; against birth control and abortion; against out-of-wedlock pregnancies; against homosexual activity and partnerships; against adoption by singles and homosexual couples. Reproductive technologies have opened the possibility of effective birth control, in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood and other biological-clock extensions. In some places, public consensus is beginning to resettle and to take the form of positive legal provisions–no fault divorce laws with equal parental rights; legalized abortions; a variety of legal arrangements for cohabiting and/or reproducing couples; and–in this country most recently–civil partnerships open to same-sex as well as mix-gendered pairs. Likewise, after a post-war lull, women have re-entered the workplace and moved into the professions. Slowly, laws have been passed to guarantee equal access, to require equal pay for equal work, to institute maternity/paternity leaves, and to remove glass ceilings.

In all of this, our Church has been a follower rather than a leader. Where divorce and the remarriage of divorced persons were concerned, the Church ”˜waited upon’ secular consensus before making changes in its own canons. Despite the Queen and Margaret Thatcher, the Church delayed the ordination of women to the priesthood until 1991, and only in the last two synods has voted to creep ahead towards making the appointment of women bishops possible. While not yet church-dividing, the Anglican communion generally and the Church of England still officially regards the ordination of women as pending reception and in principle reversible. North American church moves to treat homosexual partnerships as legitimate–by authorizing rites for blessing (New Westminster, Canada) and by ordaining +Gene Robinson, a coupled gay man, bishop of New Hampshire–now focus a furor in the Anglican communion. Just last month, the Archbishop of Canterbury extended the new, gay-friendly woman Presiding Bishop of ECUSA (now, TEC) his prayers, but not his congratulations.

Whether or not these gender developments constitute a/the cause or even a symptom, conservatives have made them the pretext for an institutional crisis within the Anglican communion. The Archbishop’s recent proposal, ironically entitled Challenge and Hope, reads like a recipe for dividing our Church. For modern church persons, these rough-and-tumble developments raise a host of questions: Where were we? How did we get here? Why? Where do we go from here?

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…for the Global South, the saying is true, “once bitten, twice shy.” It must therefore not be a surprise to see the strong reactions from Global South Christians to Western revisionism. There is no doubt the church in the Global South can benefit from Western church aid. But issuance and receipt of such aid must be preceded by lives transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the absence of this transformation, such aid amounts to the social gospel of salvation by works.

This is what most of the Global South leadership is opposed to. For them, the Bible is either the true and liberating word of God or it is not. For Christians in the Global South, it is déjà vu. It is betrayal all over again. The fact is that once the word of God has been shown, the show-er no longer has control over it. As the prophet Isaiah puts it:

“For as rain and snow come down from heaven, and return not thither, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purposed, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11).

History informs this issue. The Jewish religious leaders tried in vain to control and contain converts to Christianity. They couldn’t do it. Neither will the Western world. The tide has changed. The Global South has become the focus of Christianity just as it found focus with the gentiles in the Pauline era. Consecrations of bishops by Global South provinces and the planting of new Anglican congregations in America is just the beginning of things to come.

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Stuart Smalley (Voiceover): I deserve good things. I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up. I am attractive person. I am fun to be with.

Announcer: “Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley”. Stuart Smalley is a caring nurturer, a member of several 12-step programs, but not a licensed therapist.

[ open on Stuart giving himself a pep talk in his full-length mirror ]

Stuart Smalley: I’m going to do a terrific show today! And I’m gonna help people! Because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and, doggonit, people like me!

—Comedian Al Franken

Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town Desmond Tutu has appealed to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to invite all bishops to the 2008 Lambeth Conference, “even those irregularly consecrated or actively gay.”

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s plea came in a letter to the present Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane, in which he also called on all Anglican bishops to be “more welcoming and inclusive of one another.”

“Our Communion has always been characterized by its comprehensiveness, its inclusiveness, its catholicity,” he said. “…we are really family, held together not so much by law as by bonds of affection. There is no family that is unanimous on every single subject.”

The Lambeth Conference, the once-a-decade gathering of Anglican Communion bishops, is due to be held July 16-August 4, 2008 at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. About 880 invitations have been sent out to serving diocesan, suffragan and assisting bishops.

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The oldest church in Bell County may not be standing too much longer.

The stones at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Belton are cracked and broken, and the 130-year-old church could be on the verge of being destroyed. “Old St. Luke’s” has been condemned by the city of Belton and its days are numbered.

Tyler Fletcher was baptized in this church when he was three years old. He runs his grandfather’s antique shop in Salado and is part of the group of people trying desperately to save it.

“We’ve got to find a way to save it. It’s part of that heritage from the early thread of Christianity and if it somehow can be saved, we should attempt it,” Fletcher said.

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It is a curious thing, tolerance. It isn’t in the list of seven virtues. It doesn’t make the list of the fruits of the Spirit. It doesn’t make the Ten Commandments. As a word, it is used only one time in the entire New Testament, and then only for God’s tolerance of us as human beings!

Let’s make one thing clear: practicing the virtue of tolerance does not mean always agreeing with other people. Yet too often many of us spend much of our time evaluating other opinions or viewpoints, eventually labeling anyone who disagrees with our opinions as intolerant. Now this is utter nonsense! Tolerance is the virtue of extending courtesy and respect when we don’t agree.

Here’s the balance to seek: trying to remain tolerant, when not in agreement. Any behavior that insists on agreement or lacks respect, courtesy, and openness in disagreement, is bound to get us into trouble. And as Voltaire ruefully observed, “Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.”

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When All Saints Church of West Newbury moves into the former Sacred Heart Church building on Friend Street next month, it will be as a member of the Anglican Church of Kenya, not as an Episcopal Church.

All Saints rector Rev. William Murdoch was elected June 29 as a Suffragen Bishop of the Anglican Church of Kenya. He will be consecrated next Thursday, Aug. 30 at All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi, Kenya and will be part of the team responsible for oversight of Kenyan churches in the United States.

The Kenyan church dates back to the arrival of Christian missionaries in East Africa in 1844. According to its Web site, the church’s vision is to provide “a strengthened Anglican Church built on the foundation of the apostolic faith in Jesus Christ with the ability to equip all God’s people to face the challenges of the new millennium.”

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The mother of 11-year-old Rhys Jones cradled her dying son in her arms after he was shot on the streets of Liverpool last night by a youth who rode past on a BMX bike.

Rhys, an Everton fan, had just finished football training and was kicking a ball around with friends in the car park of the Fir Tree pub in Croxteth, when he was gunned down.

Merseyside police has launched one of its biggest murder investigations, drafting in 300 police officers to catch those involved in the killing that has shocked a community hardened to gun crime in recent years. Two youths aged 14 and 18 were being questioned today after being arrested on suspicion of murder.

Detectives have appealed to the criminal community to “examine their conscience” and help.

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A Louisiana Democratic Party ad accusing Republican candidate for governor Bobby Jindal of calling Protestants “scandalous, depraved, selfish and heretical” has prompted a firestorm of criticism and calls Tuesday from the GOP to take the ad off the air.

Political watchers questioned whether the ad went too far and whether it accurately reflects Jindal’s writings on Catholicism. Republicans and the head of a national Catholic organization called the ad a smear campaign.

Democrats say the 30-second TV spot ”” running in heavily Protestant central and north Louisiana ”” simply explains Jindal’s beliefs with his own words, using portions of Jindal’s religious writings through the 1990s, before he was an elected official.

A lawyer for the Jindal campaign sent a letter to nine television stations airing the ad, requesting that they stop showing it and calling it defamatory.

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Robert Mugabe, the dictator of Zimbabwe, claims to be a man of faith””and with some reason. He was born to mission-educated parents and, like many Zimbabweans of his generation, he attended a Jesuit school. He reportedly still attends weekly Mass in Harare. Martin Meredith, a former southern Africa correspondent for the London Times and a biographer of Mugabe, asserts that, at least in his younger days, Mugabe’s “mentor had been the Catholic Church.”

Yet in his twenty-seven years of dictatorial rule, Mugabe has shorn himself of anything his religious upbringing might have instilled. His genocide in the 1980s against members of the minority Ndebele tribe; his politically induced starvation of opponents; and the arrest, torture, and sometimes outright murder of those who speak out against his rule have all demonstrated a wanton disregard for what the Church””particularly the Church in Zimbabwe””has taught its flock. “I was brought up by the Jesuits and I’m most grateful,” Mugabe has said. “I benefited from their teaching enormously.” In truth, the only thing Mugabe seems to have kept from his Jesuit education is an austere self-discipline, a virtue that he has ruthlessly distorted to keep himself in power at the expense of his suffering countrymen.

To many African leaders, Mugabe is seen as a hero of the struggle against European dominance of the continent. But, in the end, the Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe remains remarkably similar to its predecessor, the Rhodesia of Ian Smith. The white authoritarian tyranny of Smith relied on distinct forms of prejudice, and so does the black kleptocratic tyranny of Mugabe””both abjectly refusing to recognize the inviolable rights of man.

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Michael Vick is almost surely going to jail and his football career is probably over. All the years he spent as a pampered celebrity in the general vicinity of education did not provide him with the insight that torturing dogs is not good and, besides that, could get him in trouble.

The plea bargain he struck with federal prosecutors in Richmond, Va., yesterday gives no real suggestion that he knows right from wrong. He does know that his former friends turned on him for the prosecutors, and that he is in big trouble, which is a start.

In one significant way, Michael Vick is part of the values of middle America: He is another symptom of America’s major gambling jones.

Up to now, Vick had been scrambling, looking for an opening, the same way he played quarterback ”” past tense, most likely. But yesterday, the play ended. By admitting to charges from the vile operations of the Bad Newz Kennels in rural Virginia, he could go away for up to five years, although he will probably serve only one.

That guilty plea should be quite enough for the N.F.L. to bar him permanently, particularly because of the gambling implications. These people who slipped furtively into the camouflaged farm Vick owned were not there just because they liked to see dogs chew each other to death. They were gambling.

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Update: Stephon Marbury defended Michael Vick, calling dogfighting a sport.

Tehran has threatened to bar major German banks that are pulling out of Iran due to US pressure and steep administration costs from returning to the country.

The vice governor of the Iranian central bank, Mohammad Jafar Mojarrad, told the Financial Times Deutschland that the banks’ actions could have long-term consequences.

“We are not happy with the banks’ decision,” he said.

“There is no guarantee that one can return when the good times are here again.”

Mojarrad said that because business ties are based on trust, it would be “very difficult to re-establish trust when it has been abused.”

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Los Angeles Superior Court Rules That St. Luke’s Congregation May Remain On the La Crescenta Church Property Pending Appeal

La Crescenta, Calif. ”“ August 22, 2007 ”“ St. Luke’s of the Mountains Church will continue to occupy the church property and buildings it has purchased and maintained for over 60 years, during the appeal of a ruling by the Los Angeles Superior Court on July 3, 2007. St. Luke’s Church is located at 2563 Foothill Boulevard in La Crescenta, California, and was formerly affiliated with the Episcopal Church until it aligned with the Anglican Church of Uganda in February 2006. The Court had previously granted summary judgment in favor of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles and The Episcopal Church on their claim to take over the property of St. Luke’s based on an internal Episcopal rule, following a recent decision of the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District. On August 15, 2007, St. Luke’s Church appealed the Court’s judgment against it.

This morning, the Honorable John S. Wiley of the Los Angeles Superior Court granted a stay of the judgment pending appeal, which allows the St. Luke’s congregation to remain in the La Crescenta church property until a final appellate ruling is made.

The Court rejected the Episcopal demand that the local congregation deposit over $7 million ”“ based on a commercial valuation ”“ in exchange for permission to remain on the property. By doing so, the Court adopted St. Luke’s arguments that the property was an historic church in continuous operation for many decades. In addition, the Court rejected the demand of the Episcopal Diocesan bishop, the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, that no other Christian bishops be permitted on the property without his prior permission. This demand was irrelevant to protecting the property from damage pending appeal, and instead would have served solely to deprive St.Luke’s Church of visits from its spiritual leaders based on their church affiliation. St. Luke’s Church will be required to protect and preserve the property
pending appeal, and post a small bond which will be returned to the congregation if it ultimately prevails.

St. Luke’s has been a separate, California nonprofit religious corporation since 1940, and it will continue to hold worship services in La Crescenta.

Canon Margaret S. Larom, director of Anglican and Global Relations for The Episcopal Church, will attend a meeting of the Anglican Communion’s provincial secretaries Aug. 23-30 in Hong Kong.

This will be the sixth time the provincial secretaries have gathered. The triennial event is organized by the office of the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Consultative Council.

“The aim is to bring together as many provincial secretaries from around the world as possible to get to know one another, to get to know their respective churches where they work, to talk about differences and the similarities,” said the Ven. Michael Pollesel, who was quoted in an article published on the website maintained by the Anglican Church of Canada. Archdeacon Pollesel is representing the Canadian church at the Hong Kong meeting.

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In the broadest definition, Generation-X encompasses folks born from 1960 to 1979.

Take a look at the Anglican blogosphere. Kendall Harmon, for example, was born in 1960. I was born in 1971. I don’t know when, exactly, Sarah Hey, Matt Kennedy, the Ould brothers, Binky, Mike the CaNNet ninja, the Confessing Reader, Baby Blue, and Greg Griffith were born, but I have hung out with them a good bit and we are all in the same generation, that being Generation-X.

On the “other” side of the Anglican blogosphere are hard core baby boomers like Mark Harris, Elizabeth Kaeton, Jan Nunley, and Jim Naughton.

Coincidence?

Read it all. For the record, I usually get roped into the end of the Baby Boomers, which many people date to those born until 1963. I don’t identify either with Generation X or the Baby Boomers. Generation X is sometimes described as filled with those who have no sense of a narrative structure in their lives (but are looking for one), and maybe there is a search for narrative in their blogs–I certainly sense so–KSH.

It’s Sunday in England, and across the country many traditional stone churches are struggling to get people into their pews.
But not C3, the Cambridge Community Church, one of the country’s many evangelical groups. Its mostly white, middle-class congregants crowd a rented school auditorium with their arms outstretched to the heavens and their hands fervently clapping to evangelical sermons.

“I don’t need an old church with stained glass windows where a few people show up out of obligation, not inspiration,” said Ruth Chandler, a former member of the Church of England.

In England’s last census, 72 percent of people identified themselves as Christian. Many are Anglicans affiliated with the Church of England, which was created by royal proclamation during the 16th century after King Henry VIII ”“ who married six times ”“ broke ties with the Roman Catholic Church in a dispute over divorce.

But the Church of England has said that less than 10 percent of its members are regular churchgoers…

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Here is a question for parents everywhere: Suppose a genie popped out of a lamp and offered to make your world colorblind and perfectly racially integrated on one condition ”” that you relinquish all control over where your children go to school. Would you take that offer?

Having followed school desegregation efforts for nearly two decades as an education reporter, I can vouch that the overwhelming majority of parents would tell that genie to buzz off. Most want their children in the best schools possible, to gain an edge that will help them get into a good college and land a good job. As a result, our ideal of public schools as “the great equalizer” is constantly undermined by parents who will do whatever it takes to ensure that their own children’s education will be superior.

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A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that prohibited the distribution of Bibles to grade school students in a southern Missouri school district.

At issue was a long-held practice at South Iron Elementary School in Annapolis, 120 miles southwest of St. Louis, in which Gideons International representatives came to fifth-grade classrooms and gave away Bibles. A U.S. district judge issued a temporary injunction, and a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis agreed the classroom distribution should be prohibited.

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Should you find your way up to Salem, Mass., this Halloween season, your chances of encountering a psychic are up ”” and the odds that that he or she has a felony record are down. That, for those of you who were too drowned in multimedia Harry Potter to notice, is the news from the real town where some estimate every tenth person is a witch.

In June, the Salem town council eased its rules on fortune tellers ”” or, to be more specific, those locals who are engaged in “the telling of fortunes, forecasting of futures, or reading the past, by means of any occult, psychic power, faculty, force, clairvoyance, cartomancy, psychometry, phrenology, spirits, tea leaves, tarot cards, scrying, coins, sticks, dice, coffee grounds, crystal gazing or other such reading, or through mediumship, seership, prophecy, augury, astrology, palmistry, necromancy, mind-reading, telepathy or other craft, art, science, talisman, charm, potion, magnetism, magnetized article or substance, or by any such similar thing or act.”

Salem may have been where witches were once tried and executed by puritans, but ”” thanks to the magic of branding ”” it has since become a mecca for witches and others involved in the occult arts, as well as for tourists. Around a hundred thousand tourists descend on the town every Halloween season.

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At the Jamia Mosque on Victor Street in this racially and religiously tense town, Idris Watts, a teacher and convert to Islam, tackled a seemingly mundane subject with a dozen teenage boys: why it is better to have a job than to be unemployed.

“The prophet said you should learn a trade,” Mr. Watts told the students arrayed in a semicircle before him. “What do you think he means by that?”

“If you get a trade it’s good because then you can pass it on,” said Safraan Mahmood, 15.

“You feel better when you’re standing on your own feet,” offered Ossama Hussain, 14.

The back and forth represented something new in Britain’s mosques: a government-financed effort to teach basic citizenship issues in a special curriculum intended to reach students who might be vulnerable to Islamic extremism.

In the long haul, the British government hopes that such civics classes, which use the Koran to answer questions about daily life, will replace the often tedious and sometimes hard-core religious lessons taught in many mosques across the land. Often, these lessons emphasize rote learning of the Koran and are taught by imams who were born in Pakistan and speak little English and have little contact with British society.

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The Vatican has its own bank, its own postal system, its own pharmacy and its own soccer tournament–but until now, no official state-sponsored airline.

That will change when the Holy See teams up with a small Italian charter company, Mistral Air, to launch a low-cost charter service to ferry pilgrims to many of the most important Catholic shrines, including Lourdes in France, Fatima in Portugal, Czestochowa in Poland and Santiago di Compostela in Spain.

“The spirit of this new initiative is to meet the growing demand by pilgrims to visit the most important sites for the faith,” Father Cesare Atuire of the Vatican pilgrimage office, Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, told the Rome newspaper La Repubblica.

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Ingrid Mattson knows the media drill well.

She has done the “We condemn ”¦ (fill in the terrorism incident)” speeches ”” as if, she says, that’s all anyone needs to hear from the president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

She has done the profiles of her as first woman/first convert/first North American-born head of the continent’s largest Muslim group.

She has done the talk shows retelling how 20 years ago, she left the Catholicism of her Canadian childhood and her college focus on philosophy and fine arts to find her spiritual home in Islam.

“It’s time now to move the focus back off me and back on the issues,” says Mattson, a professor at Hartford Seminary, where she directs the first U.S.-accredited Muslim chaplaincy program at the Macdonald Center.

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The ruddy-cheeked extrovert is Elder Mills, age 20. He raps on doors – hundreds every day – with an eager knock, na-knock, na-knock-knock-knock.

The tall, quiet one is Elder Keach, also 20. He goes for a more restrained knock na-knock-knock-knock, but moves just as swiftly as his partner.

They are young men on a mission in Philadelphia….

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One week before a new law imposes stricter regulations on Missouri abortion providers, Planned Parenthood wants a federal judge to keep it from being enforced.

Planned Parenthood on Monday asked for an injunction to stall enforcement until the court decides whether the new law is constitutional. Without the injunction, the law will take effect a week from today.

The requirements for a clinic to be licensed under the new law are so costly that the group may be forced to shut down abortion centers in Kansas City and Columbia, said Peter Brownlie, chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri.

Women in central Missouri would be forced to travel to St. Louis for abortions, Brownlie said. Services would also continue to be provided in Overland Park, he said.

“This is a blatant attempt to close down clinics and deny women their right to health care,” Brownlie said at a news conference Monday. “”¦ The regulations would have no impact on family planning services or the quality of care that patients receive.”

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