ADVANCE Perspective: HIM
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When patient records of women receiving abortions made their way from the Sedgwick County, KS, court to the Johnson County, KS, district attorney’s office and then probably on to somewhere in Virginia and then back to Johnson County, KS, that’s an issue worth considering, according to a lawyer for Wichita abortion provider George Tiller.
Tiller faces 19 misdemeanor charges for violating the state’s late-term abortion law. Phill Kline, former attorney general and anti-abortion Republican, started scrutinizing abortion clinics during his 2003-07 tenure as Kansas attorney general. After losing a re-election bid, Kline became Johnson County’s district attorney, according to the Associated Press. After losing the Republican primary for that spot, he took a position as a visiting law professor in Lynchburg, VA.
Here’s where the medical records come in (whew!). A box was sent from Sedgwick County to the Johnson County DA. It was then forwarded on without being opened to Kline’s new address in Virginia, The Wichita Eagle reported.
But the address was insufficient. Kline never received the box, which included copies of the medical records of women who received abortions as well as state reports of abortions, notes about the investigation and prosecution of Tiller and an activist group document, according to the AP.
Instead, the box headed back to the Johnson County DA’s office, where the records were locked away. Tiller’s attorney used the traveling records as part of a plea to dismiss the charges against Tiller, who heads to trial in March. “Tiller’s lawyers have argued that Kline’s conduct in investigating the doctor was so outrageous that the resulting charges against him should be dismissed,” The Wichita Eagle wrote.
In the end, the box of records mailed halfway across the United States shouldn’t affect the case, the Kansas attorney general’s office said Friday. The prosecutor said the mailing wouldn’t harm the case against Tiller. “The mailing of this package is at its best an innocent act that means nothing,” Prosecutor Barry Disney said in a pleading. “At its worst, it is the act of a private citizen whose conduct is not binding upon the office of the attorney general.”
