The fifth annual attempt to put teeth into Kansas’ 1998 late-term abortion law was vetoed Thursday by Sebelius’ figurehead, Gov. Mark Parkinson. See comments here by KFL Executive Director, Mary Kay Culp.
Like any Kansas law, the late-term abortion ban relies on the integrity of both the Governor and the Attorney General to insure compliance. But within weeks of the law taking effect in 1998, it was ignored, as the national media telegraphed how Michigan parents obtained a 28-week-gestation abortion in Wichita for their pre-teen daughter. The governor and Attorney General passed the buck then, and it has been downhill ever since.
The Kansas health department (KDHE) statistics division wrongly accepts reports with non-answers where medical reasons were to have been reported by abortionists who had performed post-viability abortions. At the conclusion of KDHE’s testimony to the 2007 joint Federal State Affairs committee investigating the late-term abortion crisis, Chairman (Rep.) Arlen Siegfreid (R- Olathe) summarized their defiance with this:
“The Department is telling us that if we expect any more than what they have got on these forms, we are going to have to change the law to get it, seeing as they would not even commit to an Attorney General’s ruling compelling them to do this.”
Yet Gov. Parkinson had the nerve to say in his veto message that the law need not be changed! Are the following facts examples of how the Sebelius/Parkinson administration enforces this law?
- Look at section 15b of the recent KDHS annual abortion report and see that –like every year— there are NO submissions of “irreversible and substantial” maternal medical reasons as the law requires.
- The March 2009 misdemeanor trial for George Tiller’s continued illicit use of an affiliated second opinion was a farce. A.G. Six’s prosecutor presented no financial evidence and only one hostile witness.
- The state Healing Arts Board has not revoked the licenses of the abortionists who worked with George Tiller from 2003-2008–the period of time during which the Board said illegal abortions were routinely and illegally obtained in Wichita.
The powers to guard against organized crime rest with a governor and Attorney General committed to justice and upholding the law. Kansas has neither.
The veto deserves an override. The question is, just how corrupt is the legislature?
- For the six months prior to George Tiller’s demise, the state Healing Arts Board was revoking his medical license for 6 years of illegal late-term abortions. Now, 11 months later, none of Tiller’s abortionists have lost their licenses, including Kris Neuhaus, who reneged on her immunity for testimony deal.
Pass the HB 2115 late term bill abortion bill that was vetod by Gov. Parkinson. shame on him.
Pass the H B 2115 later term abortion bill.