Kansas Supreme Court OKs Case Against Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz
Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) -- The Kansas Supreme Court today issued an opinion allowing a criminal case against the Planned Parenthood abortion business to move forward. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri faces 107 charges alleging that it engaged in illegal abortions and violated state record-keeping laws.Former state attorney general Phill Kline, as the then Johnson County District Attorney, filed 107 charges, including 23 felonies, against the abortion business for allegedly violating state law.
The Kansas Supreme Court held a hearing in the case involving the Overland Park Planned Parenthood abortion center in May 2009 and, after a lengthy wait, finally issued a ruling today.
The hearing covered disputed subpoenas filed by Kline and the high court had to determine whether subpoenas Kline issued for medical records from the Planned Parenthood facility can be enforced.
In a unanimous ruling, the state high court allowed the case to move forward but put conditions and limits on the testimony of witnesses and the subpoenaed records. They then sent the case back to Johnson County District Court, where it was filed in 2007.
The 23 felony counts say Planned Parenthood submitted to the state false reports about the late-term abortions it did that may have been outside of the parameters of the law allowing them. The misdemeanor counts include the improper record-keeping and charges that abortions were done without determining whether they were medically necessary or in cases when tests were not done to determine the viability of the baby.
Before the evidence could be fully analyzed, Kline was defeated as Attorney General, but in an unusual twist, was immediately appointed as District Attorney of the same Kansas county where Planned Parenthood operates.
In June, 2007, the new pro-abortion Attorney General, Paul Morrison, issued a letter "clearing" Planned Parenthood of any wrong-doing. This letter disturbed Judge Richard Anderson, who was the custodian of the evidence and the judge who had been involved in overseeing Kline's investigations.
Six months later, Morrison was forced to resign in disgrace amid a scandal involving his attempts to persuade his illicit lover in the DA's office to obstruct Kline's abortion investigations.
Finally, in October, 2007, Kline filed the charges but the new Attorney General, Steven Six, who was appointed by pro-abortion ex-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius placed a gag order on Judge Anderson and the evidence against Planned Parenthood. Anderson was told not to comply with the District Attorney's subpoenas.
The case began in September 2004 when Kline issued subpoenas for 90 abortion records from Planned Parenthood and the now-closed Women's Health Care Services, the abortion center run by slain late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller.
The two abortion centers refused to comply, launching Kline on a three-year legal odyssey that involved a complex series of legal maneuvers - many of them conducted in secrecy - that frequently landed the case before the Kansas Supreme Court.
Eventually Kline received the records with all patient identifying information redacted. Those records were the basis for his charges against Planned Parenthood.
However, former Chief Justice Kay McFarland issued an order at the request of the new Attorney General Steven Six, preventing the District Attorney's office from accessing the evidence against Planned Parenthood, and gagging the custodian of those records, District Court Judge Richard Anderson. Subpoenas for other witnesses were quashed.
Anderson had overseen Kline's investigation into illegal abortions from the beginning, and went so far as to seek an opinion from a police handwriting expert who confirmed suspicions that certain evidence had been "manufactured" by Planned Parenthood.
On May 13, 2009, the Kansas Supreme Court heard oral arguments on an appeal asking it to reinstate the State's subpoenas for witnesses against Planned Parenthood and for Anderson's gag order to be lifted.
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