Winners of Kansans for Life student poster contest

Sammie Nesslein's grand prize entry

This year’s task in the grade school poster contest was to design a pro-life parade float with the words: Kansans are pro-life. All entrants attend Kansas schools or home-schools. Prize-winning and honorable-mention entries were displayed at the Rally for Life on Monday, where winners received their prize check and a handshake from Gov. Sam Brownback. The top awards went to:

$100 Grand Prize, all divisions:  Sammie Nesslein, Gr. 6-  Prairie Village
$50 1st Place, Gr. 7-8 Division: Molly Muehlebach, Gr. 7- Prairie Village
$25 2nd Place, Gr. 7-8 Division: Madison Masilionis, Gr. 8- Overland Park
$50 1st Place, Gr. 5-6 Division: Clare Sexton, Gr. 6- Leawood
$25 2nd Place, Gr. 5-6 Division: Megan Lynn, Gr. 6- Prairie Village
$50 1st Place, Gr. 3-4 Division: Ethan Northcott, Gr. 4- Kansas City
$25 2nd Place, Gr. 3-4 Division: Catherine Torkelson, Gr. 3- Wichita

12 year-old Cure of Ars student Sammie Nesslein garnered the grand prize for her well- designed  and executed entry.  It featured painted sunflower balloons, hand-drawn characters and 3-d elements, including a battery pack to provide lights in the wheels!  Her poster will be framed for display in the Governor’s office. View the other delightful posters here:

Youngest-ever Senator inspires 3,000 at State Rally

The youthful “face” of the pro-life movement was on display at the annual Rally for Life Monday at the State capitol in Topeka, organized by Kansans for Life.  Not only was the crowd of approximately 3,000 filled with students, the keynote speaker was the youngest senator ever to serve in the Kansas senate, Sen. Garrett Love (R-Montezuma) –who turned 23 as he began his term last January.

Where did this young Senator get the passion to defend children in the womb? He pointed to the his “little brother” Austin, a 6’5″  local college basketball standout who stood on stage near the podium.  Sen. Love told the crowd, “When Austin was born, he fit in the palm of my Dad’s hand.  Was he fragile? Yes. Extremely.  The most defenseless among us? Yes.  And was he a life that was worth the effort of defending? Of course he was. For my family, that story and those difficult times surrounding Austin’s birth and who Austin is today are all great reminders at both how precious and awesome life is.”

Sen. Love continued, “Most concerning to me was when I learned that that during the time frame between 20-30 weeks gestation, we have more pain receptors per square inch on our body than at any other time in life and that is at the same time that our body’s system of pain suppression is not yet fully operating.  That time frame is when many abortions have been performed in Kansas and also the time frame when my brother was born…. That means babies, at a time that they feel more than at any other point in their life, which we have learned through scientific evidence, are going through the worst kind of pain and our state used to say that was okay.”

This is the kind of appealing advocacy Sen. Love articulated on the Senate floor last April, helping to send the Pain-capable Unborn Child Protection act to the desk of pro-life Governor Sam Brownback, and making Kansas the second state in the nation to secure such pro-life protection.

Sen. Love reminded rally attendants to continue to be the “voice for the voiceless” knowing that, in the words of Thomas Jefferson,“The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”

Gov.Brownback also addressed the crowd, with rounds of applause for other pro-life elected officials in attendance: over 50 state legislators, as well as Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and State Treasurer Ron Estes.

Scalia slams undue burden rule for state abortion regs

Justice Antonin Scalia

The Washington Business Journal reports that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is prepared to discard a major precedent in abortion law when considering a future challenge to state regulations of abortion clinics, such as those approved in Virginia, Kansas and South Carolina.

A self-described  “originalist”, Scalia addressed a meeting of Washington, D.C. attorneys Thursday, affirming that the 14th amendment confers rights to the states.  But he repeated his long-held view that the Constitution is silent on abortion and that judges should stay out of the issue.  Scalia mocked the so-called ‘undue burden’ principle on accessing abortion thusly:

“So I run to the law books to see what an ‘undue burden’ is,” Scalia said. “What do you know, for 200 years, no burden was an undue burden. You could prohibit it. So I can’t use the law books.”

Scalia’s exasperation with courts inventing abortion law as they go along– together with the 4 pro-life vs 4 pro-abortion (and one swing vote) composition of the U.S. Supreme Court –ties in with why the Kansas abortion clinics switched to the state courts to fight the new law for licensing, inspection and regulation of abortion businesses.

Attorneys search the history of appellate courts and state supreme courts before they move forward with litigation.  In two out of three attempts this summer at the federal courts in the Kansas jurisdiction, abortion lawyers succeeded in securing injunctions to block new Kansas laws: the family planning funding case and the temporary rules of the licensure law.

But days before the permanent licensure rules went into effect, the abortion lawyers smoothly slid into state court and dropped their original federal suit, gauging that they weren’t going to win in federal court in the long run.  This is where the new comments of Scalia

The truth behind Kansas’ abortion lawsuits’ legal fees

Abortion supporters continue their brazen complaints that Kansas has already spent nearly $480,000 in legal fees defending 3 pro-life laws enacted in 2011.

But it’s those very abortion supporters that are forcing that drain in state resources, for profit and ideological motives, plain and simple.

Let’s look at the three lawsuits and examine what is really at stake.

1. The family planning funding prioritization is a new measure, attempted this year in differing forms by a half dozen states, with Kansas having arguably the strongest legal ground.  Wichita Judge Thomas Marten placed the law on hold by injunction and ordered supplemental money sent to the three businesses that did not meet the new criteria. The Kansas Attorney General has appealed those actions to the 10^th Circuit appellate court, and a ruling on the merits of the appeal is expected at any time.

This lawsuit was filed because financially-failing Planned Parenthood branches in Wichita and Hays, and one independent business in Dodge City, were not going to get nearly $375,000 in Title X state subsidies under the new law. No services formerly provided to Kansas women were being eliminated.  In fact, the only change was that the state would only contract for reimbursements with public clinics serving the poor, and in fact, would provide BETTER access to a full range of health care.

This lawsuit is little better than extortion, backed implicitly by the pro-abortion Obama administration and the federal agency that controls Title X money–HHS, headed by former Kansas governor, Kathleen Sebelius.

2. The law banning coverage of elective abortion in private insurance plans without a separately purchased rider, is not new.  It survived past court challenges and has operated in other states, like Missouri, for decades. Part of eastern Kansas has been covered this way by Blue Cross during that time! This law is operating without an injunction, but is headed for trial next year.

This law was sued by the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) ostensibly on behalf of unspecified women who can’t afford to pay for their own abortions.  But the suit is really a steppingstone to changing the “privacy” basis that undergirds the so-called legal right to abortion. The ACLU is still searching for courts willing to rule abortion is healthcare that must be paid for under the constitutional guarantee of “equal protection.”

Although abortion lawyers have pressed this “gender equality” argument unsuccessfully for decades, they are back at it again, at OUR taxpayer expense.

3. The third lawsuit (actually a series of 3 suits) has blocked the new law instituting state licensure, oversight and inspection of abortion businesses sought by Kansans since 2002. Currently there are only 3 abortion sites in Kansas, all in the Kansas City area, although there are threats to open a new one in Wichita this summer.

After a public fuss (and a suit they filed and then dropped) the Overland Park Planned Parenthood met the new minimum standards for licensure. The other two clinics didn’t, and sued the preliminary agency regulations from KDHE, while securing an injunction. So the law is not currently in effect.

Now get this: the pro-abortion voices complaining loudly about legal fees, themselves wasted a bundle when they filed suit in federal court in July, and then switched their game plan to file suit in state court in November. So last week, lawyers for the 2 clinics formally dropped the first lawsuit and are itemizing months of legal expenses– which will get paid by state taxpayers– if the abortion team prevails in the newer suit.

Next post: the real reason the abortion clinics’ lawyers changed from federal court to state court.

Misleading pro-abortion sound bites abound

Provocative sound bites like “the war on women” can too often penetrate the short-lived attention of those more interested in social media than politics. That’s why inflammatory phrases are the bread and butter for abortion supporters bereft of any convincing defense for destroying unborn children.

It generally takes our side more than a few minutes, for example, to explain how abortion businesses do not adhere to the same ethical and procedural standards as other medical fields, and how aborted women and their families haven’t filed enough malpractice suits to change that.  It’s just so much easier for pro-abortionists to avoid true rebuttal and instead label reasonable state oversight laws as selective entrapment motivated by mean people.

And on the topic of mean, Kari Rinker, the Kansas spokeswoman for the National Organization for Women (NOW) recently labeled state legislators as “our elected oppressors”(!!) after months of her maligning a Wichita minister/ legislator as unsympathetic to rape victims. It’s easier for her to call the media for a press conference to say rape is not equivalent to changing a tire (no duh) than to explain her position that children conceived by rape deserve the death penalty their fathers will never be subject to.  Or why ordinary citizens must pay for those executions and every other elective abortion.

Now that the legislature has opened session here in Kansas, as across the nation, the mainstream media is looking for ways to fill space about abortion without going undercover and doing true investigative reporting. Most of them, have run stories like this, written from the pro-abortion perspective about ‘troubling legislative trends.’  The correct facts are found in this story in NRLC news.

The media would like to reduce all topics to a few pro-and-con sound bites, but that is a disservice to the gravity of moral issues, especially abortion. The explanation for pro-life laws may exceed a sound bite, but the babies, and our nation, deserve the time.

Planned Parenthood beneficiary of Sebelius’ FDA overcall

In an unprecedented move, the federal Health & Human Services director, Kathleen Sebelius, overruled a decision by the Food and Drug Administration to make Plan B (also called morning-after pills or emergency contraception) available without a prescription.

Since 2009, women younger than age 17 have needed a doctor’s prescription for Plan B, and Sebelius said  it should stay that way.

Sebelius said the pharmacy industry had NOT provided evidence that girls as young as 11 “can understand the label and use the product appropriately”.

Pro-lifers– thankful for any small victory in the culture war– nonetheless scratched their collective heads trying to discern Sebelius’ motives. Some opined she was throwing a bone to religious conservatives riled up at the continuing onslaught of hostile actions by the Obama administration.  To name just two of these actions:

1. awarding preferential grants to unqualified, but abortion-supportive, groups to rescue & assist sex abuse victims;
2. issuing contraceptive mandates for insurance plans without meaningful conscience exemptions.

As one well-known pro-abortion blogger noted, “ this victory for women’s health [was] snatched away at the last minute by Sebelius, sending shocks of confusion and betrayal through the pro-choice community, who always thought of Sebelius as a member in good standing.” (That’s an understatement.)

Planned Parenthood was curiously late (Thursday evening) in issuing a complaining letter to Sebelius, perhaps indicating

Science: Mothers retain fetal cells with healing properties

Pro-lifers hearing National Public Radio’s Morning Edition Monday had to be smiling when Science editor, Robert Krulwich, revealed a little-known bond between a mother and her child.

The report examined the increasing evidence that “when a woman has a baby, she gets not just a son or daughter, [but]

an army of protective cells– gifts from her children that will stay inside her and defend her for the rest of her life.”

Krulwich begins his interview with Dr. Kirby Johnson, of Tufts University, doing a little myth-busting about the placenta, formerly considered “an impenetrable barrier [in which the] mommy cells stay on the mommy side and nature keeps them separate.”

Rather, Johnson discusses how researchers found, “in a teaspoon of an ordinary pregnant woman’s blood… dozens, perhaps even hundreds of cells… from the baby.” (The scientific name for the phenomenon is fetomaternal microchimerism.)

Researchers were surprised that the ‘baby’ cells aren’t attacked by the ‘mom’s’ immunity system.  The natural references

Wannabe clinic owner wants KS abortion laws repealed

Julie Burkhart

In what she no doubt thought was a clever entry Friday on her TrustWomen abortion advocacy website, Julie Burkhart called for the new Kansas Office of the Repealer to delete abortion ‘informed-consent’ requirements from 1997, as well as four new abortion-regulating laws enacted this July.

Burkhart, the former top aide to late-term abortionist George Tiller, left Kansas soon after the state Healing Arts Board filed to remove Tiller’s license in Dec. 2008. Burkhart is now itching to set up a new Wichita abortion clinic. She may be dreaming about reclaiming the approximately 2,500 non-late-term abortions that were done annually in Tiller’s clinic until his death 2 ½ years ago. At an average abortion cost of $500-$600, the clinic could gross $1.5 million.

For Burkhart to call for repealing every law constraining unethical conduct at her hoped-for abortion clinic is like a notorious slum landlord calling for repeal of home safety inspections and fair housing laws under the claim that such regulations impede providing more affordable housing to the poor.

Although Burkhart began her ‘sore loser’ list of complaints with a tongue-in-cheek premise, she was dead serious about these assertions:

• abortion helps poor women;
• abortion is part of ‘maternal’ care;
• abortion of disabled children is economically beneficial;
• private abortion clinics should not be held to the same patient protections required of surgery centers and hospitals;
• new abortion regulations have been enacted against the will of Kansans.

None of those claims are true. Kansas pro-life laws were certainly not whisked into place by whim! The health insurance law operated for decades in the eastern part of the state. 

High volume, not safety, was legal abortion goal from outset

Mary Kay Culp, KFL Executive Director

In a speech given on the Kansas State Capitol steps last January, I said KFL’s 2011 legislative objectives reflected the recommendations of the Pennsylvania grand jury that investigated “House of Horrors” abortionist Kermit Gosnell.

Gosnell’s employees have already pleaded guilty to charges of murder, including the killing of one pregnant mother, and the routine killing of born-alive late-term babies. If you have the stomach for it, read the entire report.

The Gosnell grand jury said that to prevent this from ever happening again, one thing that had to change was for state inspectors to be allowed to review abortion files onsite. They pointed out that this, and every one of their strongly-worded recommendations, had been agreed upon by every member of the jury, representing the gamut of opinion on abortion.

Now, the Hodes-Nauser Center for Women’s Health clinic, with abortion lawyers at the Center for Reproductive Rights, have sued our state’s newly revised abortion clinic regulations that have replaced the temporary ones they sued in July.

The abortion industry complained loudly about the first set of regulations that

Sebelius, Tiller ties to lawsuit blocking KS abortion clinic law

LJ Leatherman (LJWorld, 7-12-10)

Links to Kathleen Sebelius (governor of Kansas from 2003-2009) and the political action fund started by deceased Wichita abortionist, George Tiller, continue to shape actions blocking the operation of Kansas’ abortion facility licensure law.

As permanent health department rules for clinics were set to go into effect 2 days ago, a new restraining order was obtained by the Center for Women’s Health ObGyn /abortion business of Herb Hodes and Traci Nauser. Hodes’ lengthy malpractice record helped spur lawmakers to pass earlier versions of the licensure law that Sebelius vetoed in 2003 and 2005.

The local attorney for the new litigation, LJ Leatherman of Topeka, and his wife, have long ties to Sebelius, and both have been generous donors to ProKanDo, the Tiller PAC.  LJ is the head of Sebelius’ BlueStem PAC, which is still highly active in Kansas politics, and was her election attorney in 2002.

Leatherman’s wife is JaLynn Copp, who worked under Sebelius when she was state Insurance Commissioner, and then moved with her to the Governor’s office as assistant chief counsel. Copp is now legal advisor for the Topeka police department.

Julie Burkhart guided the abortion cartel’s legislative position in Kansas since 2003 as head of ProKanDo, and continues to do so under its successor, the Trust Women abortion advocacy group. Burkhart has been hovering over the licensure litigation while feeding updates to the press on fundraising to open a new Wichita abortion business in June 2012. Burkhart claims to have already secured an abortionist, who will have to be Kansas-licensed, with local hospital privileges, when the new facility licensure law is in effect.

The law would allow twice annual onsite inspections and prompt reporting to the state of abortion-caused injuries or death of the mother.  The new permanent KDHE rules (pg 1466, here), which were devised to further implement the law, are being challenged in this state court filing.