Kansas Attorney General Submits Brief in Partial-Birth Abortion Case
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 17, 2004
Wichita, KS (LifeNews.com) — Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline plans to submit an amicus brief supporting the Bush administration’s efforts to defend the national partial-birth abortion ban against three separate lawsuits filed by abortion advocates.
In the legal document, Kline argues that the Supreme Court was wrong when it handed down the Roe v. Wade decision that allowed unlimited abortions.
"The only difference between a born child and a child killed by a partial-birth abortion is a few inches and a few judges," Kline said. "Everything else, the ability to feel pain, to see, to desire life, and be aware of its surroundings is the same. The failure of the Court to see those similarities when deciding Roe vs. Wade demonstrates the failure of its reasoning and shows that the case should be reversed."
The brief will be filed along with one from the Justice Department appealing the decision of a federal judge in San Francisco who issued an opinion declaring the abortion ban unconstitutional and striking its enforcement against San Francisco hospitals and Planned Parenthood abortion facilities nationwide.
Kline said Judge Phyllis Hamilton’s decision ignored the evidence presented to her that unborn children feel excruciating pain during a partial-birth abortion.
"Our nation was founded on the premise that our government will act to protect the rights of not only the powerful, but also the most weak and vulnerable among us and that includes a child inches from being born and a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy — we can do both if we stand for life," Kline said.
He does not expect the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse Hamilton’s decision.
Kline said he is entering the legal fray because of a measure passed by the Kansas state legislature, approved in 2002, seeking to clarify the rights of the unborn and declaring that human life begins at conception.
Kansas law allows the House to direct the Attorney General to seek legal clarification on critical issues of law.
Kline will also file similar briefs when pending cases are heard in Nebraska and New York.
