IF YOU'RE A GIRL OR A WOMAN IN KANSAS, only the courts stand between you and your freedom. The Kansas Attorney General, one Phill Kline, is demanding that health care clinics providing abortions turn over the complete medical records of every girl under 16 who had an abortion and of every woman who had an abortion after the 22nd week. He claims that he is seeking evidence of child rape and of illegal late-term abortions (defined in Kansas as abortions after the 22nd week that were not necessary for the medical health of the pregnant woman). There are about 90 women in Kansas who fit into the categories Kline has defined, and he is insisting that he be given every single detail in the medical records of all these women: their names, complete medical history, who they had sex with, what birth control methods they used, and psychological profiles.

Needless to say, Phill Kline is opposed to abortion.

The clinics appealed the case to the state supreme court after a lower court judge ruled on October 21 that Kline should be given the records. Meanwhile, until the Wichita Eagle broke the story last Thursday, the women involved did not even know the attorney general was trying to get their medical records, because the clinics were subject to a gag order.

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty.