Kari Ann Rinker
Kari Ann Rinker currently serves as the State Coordinator for Kansas NOW. She has testified in numerous legislative hearings on issues ranging from the State ERA, Domestic Violence, Voter ID and Reproductive Rights.
Since the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, Kari Ann has devoted much of her time toward grassroots activism and legislative action for women’s access to safe and legal abortion. Kari Ann has appeared on behalf of the organization on the Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC and NPR and provides local media commentary in support of abortion rights. She traveled to Nebraska to help defend the clinic of Dr. Leroy Carhart in 2009 and rallies community support for Dr. Mila Means in Wichita.
She is currently enrolled in the Masters program for Public Administration at Wichita State University with an emphasis on Non Profit Management. She will complete her degree in December 2011.
By-passing Real People: Oklahoma Legislature Tries to Pass Egg-as-Person Bill
by Kari Ann Rinker, National Organization for Women (NOW), Kansas
February 22, 2012 - 9:12am (Print)
Popular distaste for "personhood" bills has been evidence in Colorado and Mississippi. So, Oklahoma legislators are seeking the same end result through a different strategy: legislation that lays the groundwork for potential prohibition of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, oral contraception, and IUDs, and the granting of fatherhood rights at conception.
The "Rubber Stamp Attack:" Speaking Truth to Power Against the Latest Sweeping Abortion Restrictions in Kansas
by Kari Ann Rinker, National Organization for Women (NOW), Kansas
February 13, 2012 - 9:24am (Print)
This week, the Kansas House Federal and State Affairs Committee heard the largest, most expansive abortion restriction bill in the nation. HB 2598 is a 68-page piece of legislation, that manages to cobble together many of the most extreme restrictions from abortion legislation currently under litigation in three other states. And yet when I stood up to oppose it, far-right legislators claimed I "went too far."
