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Re: Clinics Ask State Supreme Court To Block Kansas AG's Investigation Involving Medical Records of Women Who Had AbortionsFrom: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com)Mon Feb 28 05:59:09 2005
In today's Ny Times - this issue is getting national attention - reprinted since registration required. What's Secretly Wrong With Kansas In a shocking abuse of office, the attorney general of Kansas is conducting a stealth campaign to violate the privacy of about 90 women who obtained late-term abortions, offering the flimsy claim that he's looking for evidence of crime. Protected by a sweeping gag order from a local judge, Attorney General Phill Kline has been demanding the women's records from two clinics that have been unable to even warn clients that their intimate histories are being sought. When the inquiry finally came to light through a court brief, Mr. Kline maintained that he needed all the women's records - including their identities, sexual histories, clinical profiles and birth control methods - to prosecute statutory rape and other suspected sexual crimes. Kansans deserve a full explanation of this gross intrusion into medical confidences that are supposed to be carefully protected by law. But Mr. Kline, a fervid anti-abortion campaigner throughout his career as a Republican politician, would not answer reporters' questions about his investigation. "Clinics should not act to protect the secrecy of the predator," he insisted in a statement, offering a blanket smear in lieu of a proper explanation. Mr. Kline's campaign echoes a similar salvo last year by Attorney General John Ashcroft. Federal judges eventually cited privacy laws to stop his attempt to forage through hundreds of records at a half-dozen hospitals. Two years ago, Mr. Kline called on health-care providers to report underage sexual activity, but a federal judge ruled him out of line. Mr. Kline deserves another rebuff, beginning with the suspension of the gag order. The targeted clinics say they have observed state requirements to report possible crimes. They have filed an appeal to the State Supreme Court, complaining that Mr. Kline is conducting a fishing expedition, not a case-specific inquiry. The clinics have suggested a compromise - that the identities of the women be blacked out with the option for more information from any whose records might yield evidence of crimes like statutory rape. It's not at all clear how that crime is linked in particular to late-term abortions, which just happen to be the current target of Republican anti-abortion activists across the country. Late-term abortions - beyond 22 weeks of gestation - are illegal in Kansas, except when they are done to protect a woman's health. But Mr. Kline offers no evidence to suggest he has any legal ground to justify pawing through the confidential records of the 90 women he has targeted for his mission of harassment. As for predatory abuse of girls under the age of sexual consent, they could have obtained abortions earlier than 22 weeks. There is no disputing that Mr. Kline has the duty and power to uphold the law. No one wishes child abusers to walk free. But Mr. Kline also has privacy laws to uphold. His demand for the clinics' records is not only insupportable legally; it smacks of an ideological dragnet. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/28/opinion/28mon2.html?pagewanted=print&position art
-- art fougner, md
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