Attorney: Kline files charges against Wichita doctor

[Jon8503]

TOPEKA — Recently defeated Attorney General Phill Kline, a vocal opponent of abortion, has filed criminal charges against Wichita-based physician and abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, Tiller’s attorney said today.

Lee Thompson, a Wichita attorney representing Tiller, said the charges involved the mental health exception provided in Kansas law for late-term abortions.

Tiller was accused last month by political commentator Bill O’Reilly of using depression as an excuse to perform late term abortion under the state’s mental health exception. Kline appeared on O’Reilly’s television show shortly before the Nov. 7 election, and O’Reilly said on the program that he had inside information about medical reports of women who had abortions at Tiller’s clinic.

Thompson promised a vigorous legal defense of Tiller.

“Health has been interpreted by the United States Supreme Court to include the mental or psychological health of the pregnant woman,” Thompson said in a prepared statement.

“The attorney general has said he disagrees with requiring an exception to preserve the pregnant woman’s mental health. Until the United States Supreme Court or the federal Constitution says otherwise, however, the mental health of the pregnant woman remains a consideration necessary to assure the constitutionality of the Kansas criminal abortion statute.”

Kline has said he is investigating, among other things, whether Tiller and other abortion providers have performed illegal late-term abortions and have failed to report suspected child abuse as required by law.

The announcement from Tiller’s attorney came less than three weeks before Kline leaves office as attorney general, having been defeated in the Nov. 7 general election by Democrat Paul Morrison. However, Kline was recently elected by Republican precinct leaders to fill the unexpired term of Morrison as Johnson County district attorney.

Peter Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, said that continues to put his Overland Park abortion clinic square in Kline’s crosshairs.

Brownlie said he expects Kline to continue his investigation of the Overland Park clinic after being sworn into his new job Jan. 8.

Thompson characterized the filing of criminal charges by Kline as malicious and “the last gasp of a defeated and discredited politician.”

Kline had waged a successful, two-year legal battle to obtain the records of 90 patients from Tiller’s clinic and another operated in Overland Park by Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. Since Kline’s loss, abortion rights activists have expected him to move against Tiller and perhaps Planned Parenthood.

Morrison had criticized Kline for seeking the records, describing it as an invasion of the patients’ privacy. But he said after the election that he couldn’t say whether he’d drop any investigation Kline had started.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/16300454.htm

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Well we knew Phill would go out with a bang