February 05, 2006

Didn't this guy see Footloose?

In the end, this guy is not the one who wins.

Confused?

The attorney general of Kansas has mounted a steady assault on the privacy of doctor patient confidentiality, all in the name of protecting young women.

Kline subpoenaed the medical records of women who had abortions, with the stated purpose of prosecuting statuatory rape cases. He also sued the Governor to stop medicaid in Kansas from paying for the abortions of poor women, including victims of incest or rape.

It all started with Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. You may remember Kline from such earlier pro-life Movies of the Week as Phill Kline Subpoenas 90 Women's Abortion Records on Child-Rape-Fighting Pretext, as well as Phill Kline Files Suit To Terminate State Funding of Abortions for Medicaid Beneficiaries. The Kansas Supreme Court will issue a decision in the former suit tomorrow. A judge dismissed the latter suit last week, which attempted to define the instant of conception as the beginning of life—to bolster his argument that abortion violates the right to life under the state constitution, despite the clear constitutional rule announced in Roe v. Wade.

Not content to limit himself to obsessing over teenage girls' vaginas, he has expanded his repertoire to include what they are doing with their lips and tongues. His latest venture, the exercise of which has Jesus' General brainstorming about undercover operations, is the mandatory reporting of any underage sexual activity by doctors, nurses, counselors, and other adults (link added).

Kline's written interpretation of Kansas' reporting law makes it the only state requiring that doctors, nurses, counselors, and all other care providers report—as abuse—any sexual interaction between teens under 16. Failure to report is a misdemeanor. Under Kline's view, professionals must report even when the sex is consensual, committed with partners their age, and where there is no suspicion of injury. The plaintiffs who filed suit—a group of doctors, nurses, and counselors—contend that under Kline's policy, even evidence of teen necking must be reported.

As Jill at Feministe points out, doctor/patient confidentiality does not evaporate when the patient is underage. Likewise, doctors and counselors are already required by law and professional ethics to report suspected cases of abuse. In addition, removing the safe space of confidentiality makes it more likely that real abuse will go undiscovered, by scaring off young women from talking to the adults who could help them.

In their complaint, the health care providers, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, urge that while they support the reporting of all suspected sexual abuse of minors, the reporting of all nonabusive consensual sexual activity threatens their confidential relationships and would have a chilling effect on teen efforts to seek healthcare—including lifesaving HIV testing, birth control, and counseling. The attorney general's office argues that there is a legitimate state interest in stopping child abuse.

Back in July of 2004, U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten enjoined enforcement of Kline's view of the law until the case was resolved on its merits. He found that the reporting law violated the clients' and professionals' privacy rights without serving a significant state interest. Last week that injunction was lifted in a 2-1 decision of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, finding that the state interest in preventing crime outweighed the minors' privacy interests. On Monday the trial opened in Wichita, again before Judge Marten.

And while Kline offers some rhetoric to indicate that his concern with youthful female reproductive organs is about limiting child abuse, others of his statements are a lot more focused on his desire for knowledge about mature women.

Kline's position is the same one he's taken in demanding to see abortion clinic records: This is part of a comprehensive plan to protect children from sexual abuse. But as is the case with the clinic records, the tools he's chosen are too crude. In one case, he wants to see unredacted abortion clinic records to sift for evidence of child sexual abuse, yet many of the 90 files he demands involve adult women, not minors. In this case, he says he needs to be advised of every breast that's been fondled around the state because each such incident is a crime, yet the vast majority of such fondlings harm no one, as he is well aware. As one expert testified Monday, wading through those thousands of benign reports will make the genuine abuse cases harder to pursue.

But I don't think Kline's real intent is to nail child abusers. In that sense it is entirely duplicative: The law already provides that any professional who suspects any form of child abuse must report it. Kline is merely saying he can better recognize some kinds of abuse than the doctors and counselors who treat it. That's curious. One may well wonder how state officials will know more from paper reports than treating providers. The more worrisome problem: Why did Kline stop trusting these providers in the first place?

Well, as it turns out, he still does trust most of them. On Tuesday Kline told an adoring Bill O'Reilly that the real target of the law is (surprise!) abortion clinics: "I get those [abuse] reports from medical offices, from hospitals, from doctor's offices, virtually every other health care provider. I do not get them from the abortion clinics." Indeed, as his 2003 opinion expressly states, its focus in broadening the rules was almost exclusively on "abortion providers." Is there something about abortion clinics that makes them less likely to report abuse? Or does Kline simply need to be informed about every single teen who seeks an abortion?

snip

Finally, Kline takes the not-illogical position that since all consensual teen sex is criminal, all teen abortion records provide vital evidence of that crime. Why, then, doesn't he subpoena all hospital records for evidence of all teen births? Is it possible that he is less interested in pursuing the real crime of teen sex than the non-crime of abortion?

A bigger problem than teen on teen sexual activity is the predatory exploitation of teenaged women by older men. The percentage of births to teen mothers in this category accounts for one half to two thirds of the total in recent years (mixed bag on those stats, but that's what a quick search will get you).

Once again, we see a policy that claims to be designed to help women, but that instead would reduce the chances that those who need help the most would get it. The efforts of the attorney general throughout his term of office are a not even thinly veiled attempt to further harass women and abortion providers. This new case continues that effort by going after the health care professionals who might assist young women in getting an abortion. Heavy emphasis on might, of course, as the largest category of women having abortions is women over 24 years of age. Kline claims to concerned about teens, but the impact of his efforts to harass health care providers will fall disproportionately on adult women.

If Kline is truly serious about stamping out teen sexual activity, however, the General has some good ideas.

Think about it. You'd have six weeks to catch the eye of the head cheerleader. Then when she goes for the gold on prom night, you can arrest her personally as the Action Eyewitness Kansas Today News 5 team comments on it, live. After that, you could lead your Special Anti-Fornication Squad into the parking lots and under the bleachers rounding up every last fornicating freshman. It might even make the O'Reilly factor if you can catch a couple engaging in a little falafel and loofah action.

I'm sure Kline is just salivating at the chance to come upon a bunch of horny teenagers in flagrante delicto, so he can round them up and protect them. He might even jump for joy.

Posted by binky at February 5, 2006 12:09 AM | TrackBack | Posted to El Infierno de kansas


Comments

And gentle readers please remember that AG Kline is up for reelection this year. Thankfully it looks like he'll have a tough opponent - Paul Morrison, a former Republican who's the Johnson Cnty. DA. Some of you might want to think about throwing a few bucks in the direction of Mr. Morrison.

And Binky, while the Footloose connection was inspired, it saddened me a bit. Chris Penn. That poor guy, the really bad dancer, dying last month - just 40 years old.

Posted by: Armand at February 5, 2006 12:53 PM | PERMALINK
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