Abortion Businesses Ask Kansas Supreme Court for Bill O’Reilly Probe

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Nov 6, 2006   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Abortion Businesses Ask Kansas Supreme Court for Bill O’Reilly Probe Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 6
, 2006

Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) — Two Kansas abortion businesses have asked the Kansas Supreme Court to investigate state Attorney General Phill Kline and Fox News television host Bill O’Reilly. Their query concerns statements O’Reilly made during a Friday night program Kline appeared on in which he claimed they were doing illegal abortions.

During the program, O’Reilly announced that an unidentified source provided Fox News with documents showing the abortions were done at the abortion centers because the women involved complained about "temporary depression."

"Our information says that on almost every medical sheet — and obviously we have a source inside here — it says, ‘depression,‘" O‘Reilly told Kline during the broadcast. "I don‘t know whether you have that information or not — I don‘t know — but that‘s what it says."

That would make them illegal.

According to state law, abortions done after the baby’s viability are only allowed in cases to protect the life of the mother or if continuing the pregnancy would cause "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function."

Attorneys for an Overland Park Planned Parenthood abortion center and an abortion facility run b y late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller are upset.

They had been resisting an effort by Kline to investigate whether they had done illegal abortions or been covering up instances of statutory rape. Both previously sued to stop Kline from getting their abortion records, but a court eventually allowed the attorney general to receive redacted medical files on the abortions late last month.

The attorneys reportedly asked the state’s high court to appoint a special prosecutor to determine if O’Reilly got the information for his statement from the records Kline received.

Kline spokeswoman Sherriene Jones told the Associated Press she doesn’t know how O’Reilly got his information and insisted Kline has not shared confidential files with him. Jones called the move "a political ploy."

David Tabacoff, executive producer of "The O’Reilly Factor," told AP in a statement that it stands by the story.

During the program, Kline told O’Reilly that the records showed some of the late-term abortions were done in violation of Kansas law.

He also said he needed the records because he can’t prosecute the cases of statutory rape without them.

"One of the first steps for a rapist when they have a child victim and the child is pregnant is to eradicate the evidence of the rape. It’s an absurdity to argue that the privacy of a child, which has already been violated by a rapist, prohibits law enforcement from presenting evidence to a judge," he said.

In 2003 alone, 78 girls under the age of 15 had abortions in Kansas.

Kline’s opponent on Tuesday, pro-abortion county attorney Paul Morrison, has already promised to drop Kline’s probe if he is elected.

Tiller decline to appear on the show but has called for an investigation of Kline and O’Reilly, especially into the television news host’s inside source.