TOPEKA, Kansas, February 15, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Kermit Gosnell’s “house of horrors” led a Pennsylvania grand jury last month to demand why state officials did nothing to investigate, let alone stop the Philadelphia abortionist’s uninterrupted spree of late-term abortions, infanticide, and a host of alleged criminal acts.
But in Kansas, a very different scenario is unfolding, one that pro-life activists plan to expose in a webcast Tuesday night. State officials are seeking to strip the law license of former Attorney General Phill Kline for pursuing his criminal case against Planned Parenthood’s cover-up of child rape, the only case of its kind against the abortion giant in U.S. history.
Next week, a three-judge panel of the Kansas Board for Discipline of Attorneys will hear charges against Kline, the state’s chief prosecutor from 2003-2007, brought against him by the Kansas Disciplinary Administrator’s Office. The two count complaint alleges that Kline committed professional misconduct during his investigation of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri’s Overland Park clinic and late-term abortionist George Tiller.
The complaint says Kline should have recused himself from the Tiller investigation on account of his pro-life convictions, and that he lied to the Kansas Supreme Court, misled a Johnson County grand jury, and discussed the ongoing Tiller case on the national talk show program “The O’Reilly Factor.”
Disciplinary Administrator Stan Hazlett filed the case against Kline on January 14, and affirmed the panel’s most recent decision not to allow Kline’s attorneys a three month extension to review the case. The 8-day trial is scheduled to commence on February 21, and conclude on March 2, although it could go longer.
“I think it’s really important to get this thing going,” said Hazlett, as quoted by the Capitol Journal. “We’re ready to go.”
However, Hazlett’s charges of misconduct against Kline are the same charges that Hazlett’s own team of investigators concluded on May 21, 2008 had no merit.
The 21-page report submitted by S. Lucky DeFries, investigator for Coffman, DeFries & Nothern, and Mary Beth Mudrick, investigator for Topeka’s Office of the City Attorney, found “no probable cause” in the charges against Kline. Both DeFries and Mudrick attested that they spent 55 hours in their efforts examining the allegations against Kline.
While Hazlett, an appointee of the Kansas Supreme Court, pushes ahead with the endeavor to disbar Kline, the very process is expected to bring to light how and why Kline filed criminal charges against the Johnson County Planned Parenthood: 107 criminal counts, including 23 felonies, some of them illegal late-term abortions. Judge James Vano of Johnson County determined in September 2008 that the evidence showed there was “probable cause” of Planned Parenthood’s illegal activity, green-lighting Kline’s prosecution of the abortion giant’s Kansas subsidiary.
Kline obtained the evidence by subpoenas over a two-year period as part of an investigation into the organization’s failure to report child rape.
Ironically, Planned Parenthood’s role in covering up such abuse has recently entered the national spotlight: stings conducted by undercover journalists last month with the pro-life group Live Action have exposed a number of Planned Parenthood clinic workers in multiple states acting as willing accomplices in covering up sexual abuse of children.
As attorney general (2003-2007), and later Johnson County District Attorney (2007-2009), Kline obtained evidence of Planned Parenthood abuse cover-up as part of broader efforts to crack down on child sexual predators in the state.
Kline’s office noted in 2003 that they received reports of child sexual abuse from reports of child victims becoming pregnant, or giving birth, but no reports from child victims having abortion – even though public records showed that on average 100 girls 15 and under had abortions every year. The legal age of consent in Kansas is 16.
Kline’s investigation uncovered that Planned Parenthood responded to his request for information by manufacturing false documents, changing sonogram results to make it appear that the unborn children were not viable, performing illegal late-term abortions on viable unborn children, and other evidence showing statutory rape cover-up.
What followed was a long-drawn out battle with Planned Parenthood, and Kline’s efforts to hold the abortion provider accountable to law until he left the Johnson County district attorney office in 2009, having lost a GOP primary bid to challenger Paul Morrison.
Morrison has not yet pursued the 107 criminal charges prepared by Kline against Planned Parenthood. There is speculation that the district attorney is awaiting the outcome of the case against Kline before taking action.
Kline is expected to mount a vigorous defense against the efforts to revoke his law license.
If efforts to disbar Kline are successful, Kline’s pro-life defenders believe this may discourage prosecutors from pursuing any criminal charges against abortion providers suspected of engaging in illegal activity.
More information is being made available in a webcast at 9pm EST Tuesday night, featuring pro-life leaders such as Lila Rose of Live Action and David Bereit of 40 Days for Life, as well as Kansas Secretary of State and Constitutional Law Professor Kris Kobach, and U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas.
Click here for more information on the webcast.