At a news conference, Kline, a Republican party politician and ardent foe of abortion rights, explained that statutory rape, defined by Kansas law as sex with minors under 16 years of age, was the main criminal activity he would investigate with the medical files of abortion patients. But he also suggested he would use the files to pursue criminal investigations of doctors who allegedly provide illegal late term abortions and health professionals for allegedly failing to report child sex abuse. Kansas is one of 31 states that have passed laws to ban or restrict late term abortions after 22 weeks, although Kansas law allows such abortions if a woman’s health is endangered. Kline maintains that women are having late term abortions whose health, in his opinion, is not in danger and who therefore are in violation of Kansas law. He told the Topeka Capital-Journal in an earlier interview, “The law does not allow a mental health exception for third trimester abortions, but it’s been interpreted wrongly to include that.”

Hundreds of women who have no access to abortion services in their home states travel to Wichita, Kansas, to obtain abortions, including late term abortions. Many are performed at Wichita’s Women’s Health Care Services Clinic by Dr. George Tiller.

This clinic is one of two whose records are being subpoenaed. Tiller himself was subpoenaed by Texas authorities last week as part of an investigation concerning the death of a woman who had died sometime after having an abortion at the Wichita clinic. Anti-abortion activists routinely picket the clinic and follow clinic workers home and around town, according to press reports. The National Organization for Women issued a statement by its president Kim Gandy condemning the probe. “This is outrageous harassment of women and their doctors for base political motives,” Gandy said.

According to the Wichita Eagle, 14 representatives in the Kansas legislature have called on Kline to abandon efforts to obtain the abortion medical records. The legislators, who are all women, called Kline’s subpoenas of the clinic records “an invasion of privacy.”

The medical privacy issue has gained national attention in this country in recent years.

In 2002, police in Storm Lake, Iowa, demanded patient’s medical files from area abortion providers as part of a criminal investigation concerning the discovery of infant human remains in a recycling center. When the local Planned Parenthood clinic refused to turn over its records, a district court ordered the clinic to release its records or have the clinic’s director face contempt of court charges and possible jail time. Following protest letters to the Buena Vista County attorney general’s office and calls and letters of support to Planned Parenthood, the Iowa Supreme Court stayed the order to turn over files and prosecutors withdrew the investigation.

In 2004 the Justice Department sought unsuccessfully to subpoena the medical files of women who had abortions at hospitals operated by universities in Philadelphia, New York, and Michigan. In 2003 Kline’s office tried to force medical providers to report any information they had about girls younger than 16 engaging in sexual activity, but a U.S. district judge issued a temporary restraining order. The case remains unresolved.  
 
 
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