While we continue to fight Planned Parenthood in court in California and in Texas, defend states like Indiana that don’t want to be forced to fund Planned Parenthood in their state, and work to end taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, there is yet another developing story that demonstrates the lengths to which Planned Parenthood and pro-abortion government officials will go to increase abortion on demand.
The story involves the dismissal of 49 criminal counts, including 23 felonies, against Planned Parenthood in Kansas. The felony charges that were dismissed were for falsifying required abortion reports, and the evidence strongly suggested more of an all-too-familiar pattern for Planned Parenthood – one of ignoring the law and disregarding the safety of young girls.
As troubling as these charges and the supporting evidence is, the reason for the dismissal of the charges may be even more concerning, because it involves very suspicious activities at the highest levels of both the Kansas and federal governments.
To quickly provide some background, the abortion reports that were needed to prove the 23 felony counts were held by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), and a copy was held by the Kansas Attorney General’s office. The KDHE copies were destroyed in 2005 during then-Governor Kathleen Sebelius’ Administration, and the Attorney General’s copies were destroyed in 2009 by then-Attorney General Steve Six, roughly 18 months after the charges were brought against Planned Parenthood. By this time, Sebelius was the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the Obama Administration.
So, to put it bluntly, it would appear that the top law enforcement official in Kansas destroyed key evidence in a pending case involving 23 felony counts. This was done in violation of his own office’s retention policy. While we have come to expect this type of unseemly behavior from Planned Parenthood, it is unacceptable on a whole new level for elected officials to follow suit.
Now, as an investigation into the destruction of these records begins, Secretary Sebelius and former Attorney General Six must be required to provide Kansans and the American People with an accounting for how this occurred on their watch. Regardless of their personal views on abortion, destroying evidence cripples the rule of law that is so fundamental to our system of justice, and it must not be tolerated. Planned Parenthood should not be above the law, and federal officials should be enforcing the law, not helping circumvent it.
This is just the most recent reason why it is critical for taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood to cease. Americans do not want to fund abortion-on-demand in the first place, and they definitely don’t want their elected officials to help cover up criminal activity. It’s time to stop funding Planned Parenthood with taxpayer dollars. That will at least be a first step to ending their coziness with elected officials, and will leave the funding of their abortion business to private individuals. The time has come.
One interesting side note: Attorney General Six was rewarded for his time as Attorney General by receiving a nomination from President Obama to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Fortunately, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has declined to approve his nomination. Clearly, they demonstrated better judgment than Six did as Attorney General.
LifeNews.com Note: Nathanael Bennett is the Director of Government Affairs for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), as well as the Main Representative to the United Nations in New York, NY for the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ).
