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Kansans deserve to know whether Kline has the goods on Planned Parenthood
Does Phill Kline have the goods on Planned Parenthood or not?
Kansans deserve an answer after all the time, money and hype that’s gone into the case. Yet a hearing Thursday could put an end to Kline’s four-year-long legal pursuit of Planned Parenthood.
And should that case get tossed on a technicality, Johnson County’s appointed district attorney and his friends in the anti-abortion movement won’t be the only ones disappointed.
In a way, so will Peter Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri.
“I have mixed feelings,” Brownlie told me in an interview at his Overland Park office Monday afternoon. “I mean, we don’t think he has any evidence of any criminal behavior, or criminal acts on our part.
“But part of me says let’s go ahead with the preliminary hearing. And let’s see what he can put on in the way of evidence, and let’s get it resolved.”
It’s up to District Court Judge Stephen Tatum. At issue: whether Kline will be allowed to use as evidence the state health records that are the basis for his prosecution of the family planning agency.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment maintains he has no right to them, and absent those documents Kline’s case is cooked.
Naturally, some will scoff at Brownlie saying he wants the case to proceed. The DA’s spokesman chuckled at the thought, then declined to comment.
But I certainly can see why Brownlie might feel that way. Planned Parenthood has twice been cleared of similar allegations of filing false information about abortions performed at its Overland Park clinic.
First time was last summer by former Attorney General Paul Morrison, who finished up an investigation begun by Kline while Phill was AG.
And Planned Parenthood was cleared again last month by a Johnson County grand jury, which looked at some of the same record-keeping issues in Kline’s 107-count indictment.
True, the right-to-life movement alleged bias in both instances. Morrison was accused of being in the hip pocket of the pro-choice movement.
As for the grand jury result, the judge and the special counsel were in Planned Parenthood’s corner, according to Operation Rescue and others.
Still, Brownlie doesn’t seem worried about a third go-round. Instead, he’s been defiant and confrontational all along. During our talk he called Kline a zealot and questioned the Republican’s motives for bringing what is thought to be the first-ever criminal prosecution of a Planned Parenthood affiliate in the nation.
“If this had been fundamentally a law enforcement initiative to simply and factually look at the law and the compliance with the law, it would have been handled differently,” said Brownlie, who claims the grand jury was more thorough in its examination.
“But it’s been as much about the theatrics of bringing Planned Parenthood to its knees or trying to shut (Wichita abortion doctor) George Tiller down, or those sorts of things.”
Kline refuses to comment on the case, which is just as well. We’ve had enough rhetoric.
It’s time we learned whether Kline does, indeed, have the goods on Kansas City’s leading abortion provider (some 4,500 every year, 60 percent by surgical means and 40 percent chemically induced).
Is Planned Parenthood cooking the books, as the charges suggest, while also performing illegal late-term abortions?
Or has this entire effort been part harassment and part self-aggrandizement? Certainly the publicity hasn’t hurt his standing in the national right-to-life movement. He’s a sought-after speaker.
Therefore, Kline wins even if the case collapses on a technicality. He can continue to allege wrongdoing and remain a hero to his supporters. That’s why I’m hoping it moves forward and Kline is forced to prove his case.
If he does, then his critics owe him an apology, me included.
And if he doesn’t, Kline ought to resign for having misused his office to pursue a personal, political agenda at public expense.
Justice, I think they call it.