Kansas District Attorney Files Response to State on Needing Abortion Files
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 23, 2008
Overland Park, KS (LifeNews.com) — A Kansas district attorney has filed a brief in relation to an investigation he’s conducting into a Planned Parenthood that allegedly did illegal late-term abortions, falsified medical records and violated other state laws.
Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline says he needs abortion reports the state has about the abortion business to prove Planned Parenthood broke the law.
However, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment is refusing to turn over the reports Kline needs.
Kline issued a subpoena for the health department to turn over abortion reports that would assist him in prosecuting the case, but the agency filed a motion to quash the subpoena.
District Court Judge Stephen Tatum indicated he will rule soon and Kline filed a brief on Tuesday responding to the state’s reasons for refusing to turn over the information.
Kline says the reports don’t need to be made public and they contain no personal information, alleviating any privacy concerns. State law mandates that the reports contain abortion data, and no names of women who had abortions.
According to an AP report, he also said they are “clearly within reach of a subpoena in a criminal case" — implying he is within his legal rights to obtain the records to complete his probe and carry out the charges against Planned Parenthood.
Mary Kay Culp, the head of Kansans for Life, talked with LifeNews.com about Kline’s brief and the case.
She said it appears Planned Parenthood has something to hide by the way it has aggressively attacked Kline’s efforts to hold the abortion business accountable to state law.
"The bottom line is that if Planned Parenthood is innocent, and their only concern is patient privacy, why did they send a cadre of high-paid lawyers to show up at a hearing to loudly argue that nameless Department of Health reports be denied to the district attorney investigating them for felony false writing on those reports?" Culp said.
"It doesn’t take a genius to see this for what it is: a coverup being aided and abetted by state agencies, the new attorney general and the governor," she added. "They demonstrate once again their belief that when the issue is abortion, the rule of law can just be thrown overboard and waved goodbye."
Earlier, Judge Tatum heard arguments from both sides and Kline and state health department attorneys disagreed about whether state law prevents the agency from giving him the records. He indicated he would rule on the motion on April 28 and hold a hearing on May 27 and 28.
Shawnee County District Judge Richard Anderson previously examined the abortion records in question and indicated Planned Parenthood’s records and state records don’t match — indicating possible problems.
Last month, a grand jury failed to issue an indictment against the Overland Park Planned Parenthood but its decision did not affect Kline’s case.
Related web sites:
Kansans for Life – https://www.kfl.org
