A 2003 Kansas Attorney General opinion by Phill Kline and the ensuing lawsuit to defend how health care providers reported sexual activity among teenagers cost Kansas taxpayers $475,000 in court costs and attorneys fees, lawyers for the plaintiffs said.
Kline
The final legal tab was settled last week between the Center for Reproductive Rights, which sued Kline, and the office of current Attorney General Stephen Six. The organization in 2006 won a restraining order in federal court against Kline and Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston over the way health care providers report sexual activity of teenagers.
“When someone like Phill Kline does something like this just to grandstand, the taxpayers have to fund that,” said Bonnie Scott Jones, one of the lawyers that brought the suit on behalf of health care workers in Kansas. “And they’re funding grandstanding on something that was clearly unconstitutional.”
Kline targeted abortion clinics in his opinion, issued just months after he took office.
The opinion broadly interpreted a Kansas law that required health care providers, teachers, counselors and others who work with young people to report any case where there’s “reason to suspect that a child has been injured” as a result of sexual abuse. Kline said abortion clinics must report any girl under 16 who showed up for services. A young girl’s pregnancy, he said, was evidence of a sex crime. He went on to say that requirement would extend to other illegal sexual contact. In Kansas, that includes almost any intimate activity involving teens under the age of 16.
Health care providers from the Wichita and Kansas City areas sued, claiming that such a broad interpretation of the law – and the strict reporting requirements – would drive teens away from their offices, preventing them from seeking birth control and treatment for diseases.
The case garnered national attention and was nicknamed “the kiss and tell case” by the media.
U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten agreed that health care providers should be granted discretion in what they report, protecting the privacy of the teens. Legislators last year amended the law to reflect Marten’s ruling.
Kline lost his re-election bid for AG in 2006. On Tuesday, he lost the Republican primary in his attempt to be re-elected as Johnson County District Attorney.