It’s good that Kansas Supreme Court will finally hear the challenge Thursday to whether Attorney General Phill Kline should be able to obtain the medical records of women who received abortions. Kline initially claimed that this was an investigation into child rapes. But that never added up, as most of the records that he sought were of adult women, and he didn’t appear to be subpoenaing hospitals for records of underage children who give birth. His office now acknowledges that the investigation is also about late-term abortions. The two targeted abortion clinics, including George Tiller’s clinic in Wichita, argue this is a fishing expedition. It sure looks that way.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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21 Comments
Typical right-wing political move–can’t stop abortion legally, so they use pretexts and subterfuge.
If they don’t want to permit abortion, then organize and put a prohibition on it like before 1972.
If they want to obey the law, quit harassing women.
Stupid man, sorry just a political bend over, hell same thing.
I like Phill Kline, but I don’t think he needs to go this far just to get re-elected.
I agree that it is just fishing.
It is interesting to once again see the editorial board take pot shots at law enforcement. Since it was a neutral judge who sent the subpoenas – not Kline – perhaps you should look at him, too. The bottom line is that sufficient evidence exists in those records for the judge to justify retrieving them. The allusion in the original post tying this activity to late-term abortion is the only thing lacking factual basis.Personally, I would rather the Eagle send pot shots at men who rape young girls, than take aim at law enforcement. I hold our police officers, sheriff’s deputies, and other agency personnel in the highest regard. Does the Eagle? Based on the above post, it sure does not look that way.
“The subpoena seeks the records of abortions performed 22 or more weeks into the pregnancies, which would be a crime under Kansas law in certain circumstances.” (A quote from this article – http://www.kansas.com/mld/eagle/news/local/crime_courts/12538687.htm – on the Eagle website.)
As the chief law enforcement officer in the state, how is Phill Kline supposed to prosecute these potential crimes without access to the records that would verify them? It is routine for investigators to gain access to medical records when undertaking an investigation. I don’t understand why there is so much reluctance to grant the same right to our Attorney General.
The Patriot Act allows “the man” to seek out your public library records, why wouldn’t it be damned un-American to let them into a real private area of our lives? After all, if you’re not having illegal abortions what would you worry about? Just kidding.Yes, that’s some more of their damned business.
If Phill wants to narrow it down, I suggest that everyone in the state that hasn’t had an illegal abortion should contact Phill immediatly and supply him with the above mentioned information. We do want to be helpful “tough on crime” people, don’t we?
If I for one minute thought Kline was really concerned about women……Unfortunately, he’s not concerned about anybody but himself and his image with his fundamentalist backers. What he’s really after are the records of as many women who had abortions as possible, and you can bet your bippie that those records are going to somehow get spread all over the internet, and the women are going to be getting anonymous phone threats, postcards sent to their neighbors etc. Some concern for women!
Wow! Jed, you took a Giant leap based on paranoia there. Do you know the man personally?
I’m as big a pro-lifer as they come, but the government poking around in anyone’s medical records makes me queasy.
Jimmy -There may be hope for you yet.
I hope it isn’t medical help!
I was searching around for information regarding this case and ran upon this website:
http://www.kansasjudicialinquiry.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9&Itemid=10
actually clears a lot up.and those who are a little sketchy in the case in general, see this part of the site:
“The records will be provided to the court, not to the Attorney General’s office. The Attorney General supported this procedure and supports the court redacting any personal, irrelevant information from the file before providing any information to the Attorney General’s office.”
NoJoCo,No, I don’t know Kline, but I know a bunch of his supporters. They are the people who picket the houses of anybody they perceive to be pro-abortion, send anonymous postcards with pictures of supposedly aborted fetuses to their neighbors, go to their churches and scream in the sunday school windows that so and so is waiting upstairs to kill all the children. They’ve posted on their websites that killing doctors has been innefective in stopping abortion, so now it’s time to kill a few patients. These people would love to get their hands on names and records of any patients they can, and they see Kline as one of their own and vice versa. It’s not that much of a leap to think that Kline will put his anti-abortion agenda ahead of anybody’s right to the privacy of their medical records. It’s just too good a weapon to pass up, when your friends think that anything that furthers God’s (read “their”) cause is justified!
Jed,I don’t doubt that those tactics have been used by extremists. It sounds, from what you have described, that they are already able to find people associated with abortion clinics.
I honestly don’t know what would happen to those records if Kline was allowed to see them – the case will be handled in the court.
Obviously, anonimity is important, but what if the laws for late term abortion are being broken, how would law enforcement know?
If what Kline is attempting to do is to obtain records only to pass them on to extremists, then hopefully the court will deny him access to the records.
If the court finds in the favor of Kline, then it will likely more on to a higher court.
Jed-
“It’s not that much of a leap”?
you can’t be serious. you go from an investigation into child rape and criminal late-term abortion and compare it to a bunch of wackos going after abortion patients?
go to the site above, my friend.educate yourself before you embarass yourself further.
Cap’n,It’s not that much of a leap when you consider that Kline is in bed with the wackos.
NoJoCo,Where do the charges that illegal abortions are being performed come from? Anything approaching a believable source?Regarding the underage girls, I see the ID”s of patients who come to one clinic here, and it’s such a rare occurrance to see a girl under 14 come in. In every case, she’s been accompanied by one or both parents, and I’m sure that if such charges were warranted, they were filed.Underage sex is not the issue here. If it were, he’d be subpoening every pharmacy that supplied bith control pills and condoms, he’d be checking the maternity wards, he’d be demanding DNA testing on every kid born to an underage mother. He’s not! He’s only looking for information he can use to go after clinics. It’s the clinics that are his problem, and the women that go to them, not kids having sex.
Jed,Thanks for your honest dicourse. I respect you for your convictions and for the fact that you are not complacent about what you stand for. It’s refreshing to have a civil discussion on the WeBlog.What do you think is the “probable cause” of the 90 cases that Kline and his people provided to the court? I’m just honesly asking, I don’t have the court records to read from yesterday.
That should have read “discourse”
NoJoCo,I looked over a partial transcript of yesterday’s proceedings, and the State was trying to argue that their investigation was “secret,” but they did have probable cause.Yeah, right! Secret?? They’ve conducted this investigation with all the secrecy of a superbowl game, and if that’s what they call secrecy, those records are nowhere near safe! As for probable cause, those are names he had of women who had a late-term abortion or were under-age. He’s justifying subpoening them to find out if someone broke a law. That’s the definition of a fishing expedition. I’m still trying to make something approaching sense of the rest of his arguments, but that may be a lost cause.