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:

Molly Muehlebach won 1st place among 7-8 graders

Madison Masilionis took 2nd place among 7-8 graders

Clare Sexton was awarded 1st place among 5-6 graders

Megan Lynn garnered 2nd place among 5-6 graders

Ethan Northcott took 1st place among 3-4 graders

Catherine Torkelson earned 2nd place among 3-4 graders

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.

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 probably make them smile, because they are now going to fight Kansas abortion clinic safety and sanitation rules in state courts, where the highest authority is the abortion-leaning Kansas state Supreme Court.

KANSAS LAWMAKERS WEIGH IN
Comments about the change-up in the licensure lawsuit strategy were posted by the lead sponsors of the licensure law, Rep. Lance Kinzer and Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook.  Picher-Cook’s press release is excerpted here:

“The dismissal of the federal [licensure] lawsuit is a clear admission that the law was consistent with the United States Constitution. I am certainly gratified by this decision, as it reflects facts we knew when we originally drafted the legislation — that protecting the health and safety of women is completely consistent with constitutional principles.
“However, there is caution ahead. By these abortion providers focusing their attention on the state lawsuit, the abortion clinics are going to attempt to argue that there is a broader right within the Kansas Constitution – that they now recognize doesn’t exist in the U.S. Constitution – to essentially have abortion on demand without any oversight, putting them in a special status that would allow them to ignore the health and safety of women.
“While this claim is unreasonable on the surface to argue the framers of the Kansas Constitution meant to convey such a “right” for abortion clinics, it is indeed revealing that the petitioners think they might find a welcome ear to their arguments on the Kansas Supreme Court.”

Pilcher-Cook is right to be concerned as there is no settled state law on the status of abortion in the state constitution.  The last case that touched on the state constitution and abortion didn’t end up with any ruling on whether abortion had the status of a protected right.

That case was in 2006, when the Kansas Attorney General’s Office had to carry out a joint legislative order to argue in state court that, under our state Constitution, state money was not allowed to pay for Kansas Medicaid abortions.  Similar cases in other states had failed on this issue and this one was no different, though the Kansas case was very capably argued by attorney Kinzer on behalf of the AG’s  office.  The state court ruled in favor of the federal ‘supremacy rule ‘ …the same supremacy rule now being invoked to defend mandated purchase of insurance under Obamacare.

Will Kansas pro-life laws stand under state court scrutiny?  The animus is clear, as today, the NARAL abortion advocacy group issued their snapshot of  state legislative actions, declaring Kansas, Arizona and Florida tied for enacting the most “anti-choice”(as they call it) legislation in 2011, with five measures each. See pgs 4-5 of their summary, here.

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.

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.

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 they were also surprised at this turn of events, or perhaps even feigning concern– because they are the most likely beneficiary for keeping the status quo!

Since a girl under 17 can’t buy Plan B over-the-counter (the current situation) she might ask a friend, relative or boyfriend, age 18 and older, to purchase it. (Yes, men can buy these— in fact, in Thailand, men are the most frequent purchasers; see this report.)

Otherwise, how likely is a girl to tell her mom she is having sex, thinks she is pregnant and needs help ASAP in getting these pills and/or arranging an appointment with a gynecologist?  Especially when her sex ed class told her Planned Parenthood is the ‘nation’s trusted –and confidential– provider’.

In fact, when using an online locator for emergency contraception in Kansas, searchers are only sent to various locations for Planned Parenthood of Kansas Mid-Missouri-- even when plugging in the exact zip codes for the Aid for Women and Center for Women’s Health abortion clinics.

Planned Parenthood does not want to lose control of its dominance in distributing Plan B, which helps bring them enhanced access to teens for long-term, federally-compensated business.

Perhaps in the face of upcoming Congressional hearings investigating how Planned Parenthood appears to facilitate the sex-trafficking of minors, President Obama’s re-election strategy is to portray himself as being more responsible.  “As the father of two daughters, it makes sense to apply some common sense,” Obama said during a White House news conference Thursday. Although he supported Sebelius’ decision, he told reporters he had no involvement in making it.

Well, that’s quite a straddle as Obama proclaims fatherly concern that does not extend to retracting his support for very young girls getting abortions, which are undeniably more life-changing and about which teens cannot possibly make informed decisions.

The abortion lobby may huff and puff, but will likely resign themselves to this delay to help get their champion re-elected.  Obama is counting on their campaign help and they know he will eventually put them back on the federally-funded gravy train. In the meantime, Planned Parenthood is the financial beneficiary behind the elaborate political games.

We’ll see what develops.

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 throughout the NPR interview to the unborn child as a baby, and to the pregnant female as mom, are refreshing.

Chiming in was Carol Artlett, a researcher at Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University, “even if a woman has a miscarriage or an abortion, even if there is no baby, the cells of an unborn child will stay in the mother for decades… essentially forever.”

But it’s what these cells do that is remarkable. “There’s a lot of evidence now starting to come out that these cells may actually be repairing tissue,” according to Artlett.

One case study the interview discusses concerns a Boston woman with hepatitis, with a maternal history of five pregnancies, including one living child, two miscarriages and two abortions.  Her liver biopsy showed not just a few stray fetal cells, but hundreds at work ‘repairing’ her liver. Months later, she was found completely healthy, with no signs of further liver damage!

Krulwich interjects the possible alternate hypothesis–that fetal cells can harm the mother–but Johnson responds, “I can’t recall a single study that’s been truly reproduced to verify the bad fetal cell hypothesis.”

What is actually happening is that lab studies of mother mice with disease (ovarian, endometrial and cervical cancers) done “over and over and over and over” (in Johnson’s words), show that fetal cells rush to the places where they’re needed in the mom.

Wow!  Heady stuff that there is an inseparable, healthy, and providential maternal-infant bond at the most basic biological level.

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.  Laws that license and inspect clinics, that end late-term abortion fraud and the violation of parental rights, and that rein in governmental corruption in regards to abortion were begged for by many, many thousands of citizens who signed Kansans For Life-initiated petitions sent to legislators and the state Healing Arts Board.

Burkhart says clinic clients don’t deserve full informational disclosure, but in what other business would that fly? Burkhart’s diatribe is full of distortions, including this year’s mantra from the national abortion spinmeisters: that pro-life, women-protecting legislation is a war against women. If anything, such legislation is pushback against decades of abortion clinic malpractice, protected by political payola. Here are just two examples:

1. The action that the state Healing Arts Board has scheduled at next February’s meeting against abortionist Kris Neuhaus is a matter they should have ended twelve years ago when federal restrictions to her license were issued and her medical incompetence discovered.
   

   Malcolm Knarr

2. The Aid for Women clinic which incubated Neuhaus and other ‘medical washout’ abortionists has been a hotbed of malpractice for twenty years.  It should have been shut down, however, the Board’s pro-abortion executive director wouldn’t close it.  The owner/abortionist, Malcolm Knarr, escaped Kansas criminal prosecution and has financially profited many years from the clinic.  The ultimate irony is that this disreputable business successfully attained a legal injunction blocking implementation of the new Kansas safety regulations!

Abortion profiteers wage the real war against women.

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 dictated janitorial and surgical room sizes, temperature ranges, and post-op retention times. Some of the abortionists’ concerns were addressed in the second (final) set, but, as predicted, they remain very unhappy.

The main reason? Because they resent the new mandate for two annual clinic inspections during regular business hours, during which “all records shall be available at the facility for review” by the state health department (KDHE).

Abortion was legalized with the slogan: “Make abortion safe and legal.”  In reality, legality has protected abortionists, not women, and it certainly didn’t protect viable babies in Pennsylvania, nor here in Kansas, despite laws firmly in place. No, we have only one law to thank for bringing down Gosnell’s 20-year reign of terror: the law against selling illegal drugs. It was drug inspectors who turned him in!

The drug folks helped us here in Kansas, too, when Tiller-friend Larry Buening, the long-time head of the Board of Healing Arts was finally removed—not because of our long-time contention that he facilitated illegal late-term abortions here, but because of his inaction to stop a pill mill doctor and his wife, accused of causing 54 deaths. Go drug enforcement agents!

When a new and unbiased director replaced Buening, he only lasted a year. He was asked to resign at the same meeting where he was attempting to get the Board to investigate Kansas late-term abortionists!

The abortion industry and those protecting it here have gone to great lengths to ruin Phill Kline. Now it appears their political friends selectively destroyed evidence— anything to prevent access to their files by law enforcement. Now they insist health inspectors not have access either!

39 years after pro-abortion feminists claimed legality was meant to make abortion ‘safe’ for women, I have a question: With no law enforcement or health inspections allowed, how, exactly, is that supposed to happen?

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.