Following on the heels of
Lorraine's wonderful post yesterday, is news that should make all of us a little uneasy, regardless of our position on abortion.
Attorney General Phill Kline, THE chief law enforcement officer for the State of Kansas, has decided that he wants ALL the private medical files maintained by physicians in Kansas that contain information on women who have had certain types of abortion procedures.
The NYT has the story.
Why? Because someone, MAY have committed a crime. Who? He doesn't know. It's like pornography. He'll know it when he sees it.
Prosecutors have an incredible amount of power. They have power to do a great deal of good in bringing criminals to justice, providing closure to victims of crime, and in general making their jurisdiction safer for the citizens.
They also have the ability to engage in unbelievable abuses of power. The kind that is occurring here:
Attorney General Phill Kline, a Republican who has made fighting abortion a staple of his two years in the post, is demanding the complete medical files of scores of women and girls who had late-term abortions, saying on Thursday that he needs the information to prosecute criminal cases.
Mr. Kline emphasized statutory rape at a news conference here but also spoke obliquely of other crimes that court documents suggest could include doctors' providing illegal late-term abortions and health professionals' failing to heed a state law that requires the reporting of suspected child sexual abuse.
Mr. Kline's efforts to obtain records from abortion clinics follows his failed attempt last year to require the state's health workers to report any sexual activity of girls younger than 16, the age of legal consent in Kansas.
Health-care providers sued, and a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order.
Mr. Kline's new investigation could yield similar records. His effort became public this week when two clinics whose records are being subpoenaed filed a brief in State Supreme Court to block what they called a "secret inquisition" and "fishing expedition" that threatened the doctor-patient privilege and women's constitutional rights.
Noting that personal details like marital status, race, employment history and emergency contacts are in the records, lawyers for the clinics asked, "How can a woman's method of birth control or prior history of abortions or use of drugs and medications be relevant?"
This is nothing more than a witch-hunt. That is, Mr. Kline has an agenda when it comes to abortion. He has decided it is his duty to see if "crimes" were committed. What he is really doing is an serious attempt to limit access to abortion because he does not like it.
How many women in Kansas this morning who were thinking of having an abortion will not do it now because they do not want the government, its agents, its law enforcement officers, it courts or anyone else to have access to her medical records.
How many doctors may wake up and say, "enough, this is just too much damn trouble to do anymore."
That is the point. Make is so uncomfortable, so stressful, so filled with anxiety that its just too much "trouble" to go through with what must be an incredibly hard decision to make in the first place. A decision that should not be influenced by the state, the cops, or anybody but a woman and her doctor.
So who is Mr. Kline?
Mr. Kline, head of the national Republican attorneys general association, was in the Kansas House for eight years and is a staunch abortion opponent. He argued last year that Roe v. Wade should be overturned in an brief in the federal cases on abortions after the first trimester.
I am a man. I will never have to make this decision for my body. Right now its legal.
But, what other lawful activities will prosecutors in different states decide need to be investigated? It is a slippery slope. One where people like Mr. Kline needs to be stopped.