Forget about Phill Kline being pro-life. Forget about Phill Kline being a religious, right-wing wacko and focus on the issues.
-Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline
Life Dynamics founder Mark Crutcher and Kansas AG Phill Kline
Kansas conservative wingnut AG Phill Kline gets his marching orders from a nutball anti-choice fanatic (see image above)? Potentially damaging, perhaps explosive. Who dug up the dirt and named names? The newly "fair and balanced" LA Times? The Washington Post, following up on their recent puff piece? No. Who then? Try the diminutive Lawrence Journal World. It's actually solid reporting.
Has Phill finally stepped in doo-doo? Remains to be seen. But we can dream can't we? Of course I'd hate for this to take the gloss off of Phill's upcoming GQ profile. Yeah, that's right. I said GQ profile.
For background on the Kansas Attorney General's harassment of women and abortion providers, while claiming to rid the world of child rapists and those who love them, check
here,
here, and
here.
Warning: Avoid eating within two hours of viewing the contents of aforementioned links
First, just the facts ma'am.
An anti-abortion crusader in Texas says his organization provided the evidence that led to Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline's controversial investigation of two abortion clinics.
Life Dynamics president Mark Crutcher said he had callers pretending to be 13-year-old girls call abortion clinics across the country, including four clinic offices in Kansas. The group says its tapes from the telephone conversations prove the clinics are operating illegally.
"The tapes from our investigation clearly prove that these people (abortion providers) are running a pedophile protection racket," Crutcher said.
But abortion-rights groups say the apparent link between Life Dynamics and Kline, which Kline denies exists, is evidence that the attorney general is using the power of his office to advance an anti-abortion agenda and appease his conservative political base.
Life Dynamics you say? Their website proclaims the group as "pro-life, without compromise, without exception, without apology." He is listed as a Board Officer for Prolifepac.com, where his bio says "In 1987, he developed the Life Activist Seminar to train movement activists in innovative new strategies to oppose abortion." It says nothing specifically about how to impersonate a 13-year old, however. He must have picked up the gist hanging around the local Disney Store. A lot.
But wait, according to Kline's office, Life Dynamics had nothing to do with their investigation of "child rape."
Whitney Watson, a spokesman for Kline's office, said the attorney general was familiar with Life Dynamics but
denied the organization had a hand in the inquisition that began last year and led to a Shawnee County judge subpoenaing the medical records of about 90 women and girls who had abortions in Overland Park and Wichita.
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But Crutcher told an Indianapolis newspaper reporter that Life Dynamics had provided Kline the information that launched the investigation. "He flat-out said, `The Kansas attorney general
had admitted using my stuff,'" said Laura McPhee, a reporter with
Nuvo, a weekly newspaper.
And when pressed by the Journal-World, Crutcher said: "We put the information out there. People can do with it what they want. Your attorney general is pursuing it. You can connect the dots.
Here's how it all went down:
Crutcher said Life Dynamics had provided attorneys general in several states with transcripts and tapes of telephone calls from the group's attempted
sting operations in February and March of 2002, in which
a caller poses as a 13-year-old girl who says she's pregnant by her 22-year-old boyfriend. Saying she's afraid her disapproving parents will find out, she asks about an abortion.
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On recordings Crutcher provided to the Journal-World, he says the conversations are of workers in clinics in Shawnee Mission, Wichita, Hays and Overland Park, heard telling the girl how to get an abortion without her parents finding out, how to keep her boyfriend out of trouble and how to obtain birth control pills.
In Kansas, if a 22-year-old adult has sex with a 13-year-old juvenile, it is considered statutory rape.
According to Crutcher, the tapes prove that abortion clinics have conspired to protect the identities of rapists, many of whom, he said, are sexual predators. And by supplying birth control pills to a 13-year-old girl who has said she is in a sexual relationship with a 22-year-old man, he said, the clinics are, in effect, protecting and perpetuating the relationship.
So, bad for them for perpetuating a criminal relationship and bad for them for handing out the morning after pills which would end the pregnancy from that criminal relationship. Uh...right. Well get those clinics closed down, pronto! After all even NARAL can't defend the sexual exploitation of a 13-year old by a 22-year old. Open and shut right? Except:
[Planned Parenthood and ProKanDo spokespeople] Burkhart and Brownlie said it's neither wrong nor illegal to answer an anonymous teenager's questions about the state's abortion laws. Both said clinic counselors would have asked the caller to make an appointment, during which questions about the relationship and the boyfriend's age would have been asked.
"We would never do that over the phone because we would have no way to verify who's on the other end of the line," Brownlie said. "And, frankly, these aren't the kind of things you talk about over the phone."
Brownlie and Bill Hoch, spokesman for Tiller's clinic, Women's Health Services, said if the girl had come to the clinic and if counselors had confirmed that she was 13 and her boyfriend was 22, a report would have been filed with the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services' Child Abuse Hotline.
"Absolutely, without a doubt," Hoch said.
"The situation you're describing -- she's 13, he's 22 -- would fit within our understanding of abuse," Brownlie said. "It would be reported to the SRS hot line, that's our policy and our practice."
Moreover:
Reporting instances of underage girls seeking abortions
does not guarantee prosecution. Instead, calls are reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services.
Oftentimes, consensual sex or sex between "age mates" are not considered worthy of investigation, said Sandra Hazlett, director of child and family policy at SRS.
Those thought to involve criminal abuse, coercion or incest are referred to investigative teams throughout the state. The teams include a social worker and a police officer.
Many of these cases are not prosecuted, Hazlett said, because evidence is insufficient or testimony is unreliable.
Suspected abusers who are not charged are added to the SRS-maintained Child Abuse Registry, a database used in background checks, for potential teachers, day-care workers and others who deal with children.
"There are thousands of names in there," Hazlett said.
So lemme get this straight. A private group performs a "sting operation" on abortion providers by knowingly impersonating pregnant 13-year olds victimized by an older man. They submit their recordings to 11 states attorneys general, and in 2 cases there are ongoing investigations (Kansas and Indiana). Hey, legal eagles! Does Planned Parenthood have sufficient cause to bring any action against organized phone harassment? Is the collusion of powerful state officials with groups who play political dirty tricks ethically or legally defensible? Why is Crutcher willing to discuss Kansas but not Indiana?
Here are some things to consider from the great Laura McPhee's great Novo article linked above:
"Since this showdown recently broke in the national media, 10 other attorneys general have requested data from the Life Dynamics investigation. Stay tuned," Crutcher says. "It may have been a long time in coming, but the fur is starting to fly."
But that's not entirely true in all cases.
In California, Los Angeles County chief medical officer Thomas Garthwaite investigated complaints based on Life Dynamics evidence and "determined that the clinic was in compliance with the mandatory child abuse reporting requirements."
In Connecticut, the Attorney General's Office investigated the allegations and found "Planned Parenthood is conscientiously complying with the law and reporting when kids are in danger."
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal went on to say in a formal ruling, "There is no automatic obligation to report such behavior in every situation. Mandated reporters must use their professional judgment to assess all situations involving minors."
Last July, a U.S. District Court made the same ruling when denying Kansas Attorney General Kline's request for access to Planned Parenthood files to investigate the child molestation charges based on Life Dynamic's claims.
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According to Crutcher, Kline has publicly acknowledged Life Dynamics' role in spurring the Planned Parenthood investigation, but he can't be as forthcoming about Indiana.
"I can't comment on specifics. I can't say if he's using my research. But I can tell you that 11 states are using this information. I just can't tell you which states those are. If they want to disclose my involvement, they can," Crutcher said.
For his part, the Indiana attorney general has made no public statements about the investigation, leaving all questions for his press liaison, Staci Schneider. When asked about the connection between Life Dynamics and Steve Carter, Schneider would only reply, "I wouldn't be able to confirm that."
Crutcher is much less coy, "We did this investigation -- the research and the sting operation -- we turned all that over to the attorney general in 11 states and now some of those states are reacting. I can't say what states I gave the information to, but it's not hard to make the connection."
Sorry for the long diary, but you need something to fill your time in anticipation of Phill's GQ spread. Are there polar bear rugs in Kansas?