TOPEKA, Kansas (AP) – The Kansas attorney general is demanding abortion clinics turn over the complete medical records of nearly 90 women and girls, saying he needs the material for an investigation into underage sex and illegal late-term abortions.
Two clinics are fighting the request in Kansas Supreme Court, saying the state has no right to such personal information.
But Attorney General Phill Kline, an abortion opponent, insisted Thursday: “I have the duty to investigate and prosecute child rape and other crimes in order to protect Kansas children.”
Kline is seeking the records of girls who had abortions and women who received late-term abortions. Sex involving someone under 16 is illegal in Kansas, and it is illegal in the state for doctors to perform an abortion after 22 weeks unless there is reason to believe it is needed to protect the mother’s health.
Kline spoke to reporters after details of the secret investigation, which began in October, surfaced in a legal brief filed by attorneys for two medical clinics. The clinics argued that unless the high court intervenes, women who obtained abortions could find government agents knocking at their door.
The clinics said Kline demanded their complete, unedited medical records for women who sought abortions at least 22 weeks into their pregnancies in 2003, as well as those for girls 15 and younger who sought abortions. Court papers did not identify the clinics.
The records sought include the patient’s name, medical history, details of her sex life, birth control practices and psychological profile.
Um, hey dude? Why don’t you go fishing in lakes and rivers instead?
Why not just add literacy tests, registration, and licensing for abortions? Let’s make it really difficult for women to choose without being honest about it! It worked great with the vote.
Although I don’t agree with this latest AG idiot from the midwest, late term abortions are pretty janky and girls under 16 shouldn’t be fucking. I’m just sayin’.
Even stronger than that, J, it’s pretty fucked up. Furthermore there are a horde of ethics issues such as the privacy of medical records against mass demands without a warrant, probable cause, a writ, etc issued by a judge. It’s like the RIAA for planned parenthood.
The basic disconnect is that law enforcement is not supposed to be able to get any private documents unless they are investigating a specific instance of a crime. They are not allowed to go looking through documents which may contain evidence of a crime they are unaware of. It’s like the whole point of the fourth ammendment.
I’m sure that your ancestry back to when God created Adam and Eve is full of people that waited until they were 18 and married to have sex and give birth right?
In doing so, Kline requested the redacted medical records (without names) of 90 women and girls who either gave birth to a child or had an abortion. His office was ultimately granted these redacted records by the Kansas Supreme Court.[6]
On December 21, 2006, Kline charged abortion provider Dr. George Tiller with more than 30 misdemeanors, most involving abortions Tiller allegedly performed on minors. But just hours after the charges were unsealed, a Sedgwick County judge threw them out “at the request of Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston, who said her office had not been consulted by Kline.”[7] However, on June 28, 2007, a 19-count indictment was unexpectedly filed against Tiller by Kline’s successor, Paul Morrison. On March 27, 2009 Dr. George Tiller was found not guilty of all 19 misdemeanor charges stemming from some abortions he performed at his Wichita clinic in 2003. [8]
In a related matter, Kline was named a defendant in a suit brought in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas challenging a state law requiring “doctors and other professionals”[9] to report “all consensual underage sexual activity as sexual abuse.”[10] On April 18, 2006, Judge J. Thomas Marten agreed and issued a permanent injunction, ruling that such a policy was contrary to state law.[10]
In 2006, Operation Rescue and Phil Kline claimed that an alleged rapist was captured with the help of abortion clinic medical records subpoenaed as a result of Kline’s investigation.[11] The District Attorney who prosecuted Estrada challenged Operation Rescue’s claims, stating that Kline and the records had no involvement in the prosecution.[11]
a nice kicker at the end too:
The KCTV report also suggested that Kline spent an inadequate amount of time in the Johnson Country District Attorney’s Office, often only spending a couple of hours a day in the office, averaging only 29 hours per week.
I don’t fit in your silly tribal analysis, but gun rights activists do get pissed when some passive-aggressive pantywaist newspaper decides to publish the names and addresses of everyone in the concealed carry license public record. They try to legitimize it by saying that (among other things) it allows people to make sure prohibited criminals haven’t slipped through the extensive background checks. Gun haters lap it up like it’s some sort of holy war instead of just turning a public database into a shopping list for criminals (though it’s up in the air whether this makes them more likely to visit those homes or ones not on the list).
Typically the response when this happens is exactly like this thread: “oh, how the teeth would gnash together if someone asked for public abortion clinic records.” And naturally, there is a lovely unintended consequence: people go up in arms and then the legislature closes the database from public view. Real slick there, local news media.
In all these cases it’s just passive-aggressive losers that can’t win over the public with their terrible ideas and have to take it out on real law-abiding human beings.
