A Missouri  lawmaker is trying to stop a college student from doing her dissertation on the 72 hour waiting period for abortions.

That's right, he doesn't want the law studied, and has demanded that the student and the University hand over all materials and correspondence related to the dissertation.

No, I'm not making this up, but it is further proof that knowledge is anathema to the Republican party.

Missouri state Sen. Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) claimed in a letter to the university chancellor dated Oct. 30 that the university is breaking the law by allowing the student to carry out her research. The grad student is studying a recently imposed law requiring women in Missouri to wait 72 hours between the time they seek information about an abortion and the point at which they have the procedure.

Schaefer is chairman of the Missouri senate's interim Committee on the Sanctity of Life and a GOP candidate for state attorney general. The state senate began investigating Mizzou's ties to Planned Parenthood this year after an anti-abortion group released heavily edited videospurporting to show that the women's health clinics were selling aborted fetal tissue. No evidence has emerged to prove this assertion; rather, some Planned Parenthood clinics request the reimbursement for the cost of delivering tissue to be used for medical research.

Part of Schaefer's complaint about the 72-hour waiting period study is that the student's supervisor, Marjorie Sable, is a member of the Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri Board of Directors. The grad student is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Social Work, of which Sable is a director.

"It is difficult to understand how a research study approved by the University, conducted by a University student, and over seen by the Director of the School of Social Work at the University can be perceived as anything but an expenditure of public funds to aid in Planned Parenthood in improving 'its services to better meet the needs of women seeking abortions' in clear violation of Missouri law," Schaefer wrote.

What the hell, Missouri? Now a Senator can just stop any study that doesn't agree with his or her personal belief?