(KS) attorney general seeking records of women who had late-term abortions

“Senator and Dr. Barnett and Senators Wagle and Journey are correct: rape is a serious crime and when a 10, 11 or 12 year old is pregnant - they have been raped under Kansas law.

“As the State’s Chief Law Enforcement Official I have the duty to investigate and prosecute child rape and other crimes in order to protect Kansas children.

“The issue before the Supreme Court is whether a district court judge can issue a subpoena when the judge has probable cause to believe that crimes have occurred, including child rape.

“The child’s privacy is always protected- you never see the name of the child victim in the paper and no one has the right to rape or victimize a child or women whether in private or public. There are two things child predators want: access to children and secrecy and as Attorney General I am bound and determined to not give them either. The child’s privacy is always protected and the clinics should not act to protect the secrecy of the predator! One Kansas clinic recently provided records to Texas; the Kansas subpoena is no different.”

Nowhere is this more evident than in Kansas. That state’s assault on youth began on June 18, 2003, the day Attorney General Phil Kline, a 43-year-old Republican, announced a change in the reporting requirements in cases of suspected child sexual abuse. Like every state in the country, Kansas has, since the early 1970s, required that professionals working with children—among them doctors, dentists, nurses, coroners, medical examiners, psychologists, teachers, child care providers, social workers, and law enforcers—notify the authorities whenever child abuse or neglect is suspected. In 2000, 2.8 million reports were filed nationwide; 879,000 cases were substantiated.

Kline got his impetus from State Senator Mark Gilstrap, an anti-abortion Kansas City Democrat. In the spring of 2003, Gilstrap contacted Kline and urged him to review the disclosure requirements regarding minor’s access to reproductive health care—especially abortion. Kline told the Capital- Journal newspaper that his perusal of Child Abuse statutes led him to strengthen the reporting mandates. “It is illegal for girls under 16 to have sexual relations,” he says. Since sex for females under 16 is, by definition, “rape, indecent liberties with a child, or unlawful voluntary sexual relations,” all libidinous activities on the part of these teens has to be revealed.

In practical terms, if the courts uphold Kline’s directive, mandatory reporters will have to notify the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services “if they come into contact with a boy or girl younger than 16 who seeks medical attention for a sexually transmitted disease, a girl who seeks medical attention for a pregnancy, or children younger than 16 who seek birth control or who disclose that they already have been sexually active,” since this is “evidence” that a felony has been committed.

Doctors who fail to report “suspected abuse” face up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. They can also be disciplined by the State Board of the Healing Arts.

The Kansas attorney general has withheld more than 1,600 compact discs from distribution to state libraries because officials determined the albums promote violence or illegal activity, records show.
The albums removed by Attorney General Phill Kline's office were part of 51,000 discs given to Kansas as part of a nationwide settlement to resolve allegations of price fixing.

The confiscated CDs included recordings by 25 musicians, including rap artists such as OutKast and Notorious B.I.G., rock bands Rage Against the Machine and Stone Temple Pilots, and even older acts such as Lou Reed and the 1980s experimental group Devo.



Watson said the office's consumer-protection and antitrust division vetted the list. In some cases, they were familiar enough with the albums to determine if they had questionable content. In others, they looked at Internet databases of lyrics.

"We don't have the manpower to look at every album and every song lyric, but we feel we removed most of the albums that did not mesh with the values of a majority of Kansans," she said.