Really, what is wrong with Kansas?

Hatemongers in Topeka, a serial killer in Wichita and an ideologue attorney general operating statewide have recently catapulted the usually boring state into the national news cycle.

Our positions on the Phelps family and the BTK should be obvious — we’re fervently against both — so we turn our attention to Phill Kline, Kansas’ record-raiding attorney general, whose newfound notoriety is significantly more complicated.

It came to light last week that Kline, a career anti-abortion politician, has subpoenaed the records of 90 girls and women who received late-term abortions at two clinics in the state.

Our concerns about this action are numerous.

Foremost, Kline’s reasoning for the subpoena is sketchy at best. He claims state review of these 90 records will help prosecute statutory rape cases, thereby “protecting Kansas children.” He gave no indication, however, of how subpoenaing a small percentage of late-term abortions records would achieve that end.

The very idea that abortion records — with deeply personal information about one girl or woman but little, if any, about anyone else — can solve crimes borders on the absurd. Given the benefit of the doubt that such prosecutions are possible, wouldn’t records pertaining specifically to girls under Kansas’ age of consent (with no regard for the time of the abortion) or records containing abuse reports be a better place to start? Better yet, why not try open records first to get to the same information?

Compromising medical privacy is a high price to pay and should only be considered when substantial evidence of a criminal act exists and absolutely no other options are available.

Further, one of the clinics subpoenaed is operated by a political opponent of Kline’s who donated at least $150,000 to prevent his 2002 election to attorney general, begging the question of how political interests and rivalries are influencing Kline’s actions.

These concerns are not assuaged by Kline’s refusal to answer questions on the subject and use of a gag order to keep the subpoena secret, even from the women whose records are in question. The subpoena’s existence was known only after a brief was filed with the Kansas Supreme Court by the two subpoenaed clinics. These veils of secrecy only further call into question Kline’s motivations.

As the records request stands now — shrouded in secrecy and aimed at a small and possibly unrelated percentage of abortion recipients at a clinic operated by a political adversary — it appears to be in the interest of Kline and his well-established anti-abortion agenda rather than law and order, as he claims.

As an attorney general, Kline has a duty to be forthcoming with justifications for his actions and respect the privacy of the citizens he serves. His actions in this case seem to betray both of those duties.