Pro-Life Snooping

Kansas just can't seem to avoid the front lines in the culture wars. A court brief revealed last week that the state's pro-life attorney general, Phill Kline, has obtained subpoenas for the medical records of nearly 90 women who had late-term abortions, as part of an inquiry into possible cases of statutory rape, among other crimes. The investigation became public when the two clinics holding the records asked the Kansas Supreme Court to quash or limit the order. Not all the records are for women under 16, the age of consent in Kansas, which is why pro-choice activists fear Kline may be using the subpoenas to crack down on late-term abortion--permitted in Kansas only if a woman's health is in serious danger. The Justice Department was turned down last year in a similar effort to get patient data, as it fought legal challenges to the federal ban on so-called partial-birth abortion. Why does Kline think he will succeed where the feds failed? "That was a civil matter," says a spokesman. "This is a criminal investigation." --By Wendy Cole