My name is Jessi Miller.
Although I support Planned Parenthood, I am not affiliated with them.
I am not currently affiliated with the University of Missouri.
I am not affiliated with anyone. I am speaking from my heart. I am saying what I know. I am saying what I think.
Senator Kurt Schaefer once said that he supported academic freedom. He once said that doctors should be in charge of health care. He campaigned emphatically against lobbyists influencing politicians.
Since then, Senator Schaefer has attempted to restrict the academic freedom of a student performing a study at the University of Missouri; proposed budgets and bills to cut funding to Medicaid, state welfare, and other public assistance programs while fighting to remove doctors' abortion privileges; and in 2014, he received the largest amount of money from lobbyists, despite that staunch campaign.
Schaefer "vow[ed] to get MU out of the abortion business." Yet he was put in charge of the distinctively named "Sanctity of Life" committee, which was supposedly meant to *objectively investigate* Missouri's abortion clinics in the wake of the widely shared, heavily manipulated, and completely debunked anti-Planned Parenthood video.
Schaefer has repeatedly been accused of misusing and mismanaging his position as Chairman of the Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee. Many have said that he should have stepped down now that he has chosen to run for the position of Attorney General, for ethical reasons. Yet Schaefer continually refuses to do so.
Schaefer has repeatedly called MU's removal of Planned Parenthood's physician Refer and Follow privileges as a "victory," and says that he has fulfilled his promise of "getting MU out of the abortion business." He has twisted the laws to fit his personal agendas, and blatantly champions this online. Schaefer has said that he will continue to fight to keep MU "out of the abortion business."
These puzzle pieces just don't fit well together. Things don't properly add up. An obviously biased senator, repeatedly accused of misusing one of his positions, has contorted the law to fit his personal agenda, while heading and "investigative" committee that instead pressures a University to end a decades-old relationship with a legitimate and legal medical office... And all of this just so happens to occur when said senator is running for the prestigious office of Attorney General.
I believe that there is something underhanded going on here. I believe that it is quite visible to anyone who takes a close look.
I call for an investigation to be opened into the actions of Senator Kurt Schaefer, to find out if the Senator misused, mismanaged, or abused his positions as the Chairman of the Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee or the Sanctity of Life Committee to encourage, manipulate, or force any individual affiliated with MU or otherwise to end their relationship with Planned Parenthood.