The Kansas Senate today fell four votes short in a bid to override a veto of a bill requiring more detailed reporting of late-term abortion statistics and added protections for babies born alive during attempted abortions. Previously, Governor Kathleen Sebelius vetoed the measure, claiming her beliefs as a Catholic support a "women's right to privacy." Ironically, Sebelius also asserted that her personal beliefs as a Catholic tell her "abortion is wrong."
Kansans for Life provides the following report:
In Kansas getting an abortion when the baby is already viable (able to live outside the womb) is illegal unless necessary to prevent the woman's death or to prevent "substantial and irreversible bodily damage" to the woman.But official state abortion statistics in Kansas show there have been 3,800 abortions at 22 or more weeks gestation in the last 8 years (when the first abortion statistic bill was passed). They show 2,300 of them were on viable babies (those able to live outside the womb at the time of the abortion), and that none of the 3,800 were to prevent the death of the mother.
In 1998 and 1999 a total of 240 viable babies were aborted through the partial-birth abortion method. Again, none to prevent the death of the mother, but the statistics showed that the reasons for every one of those abortions was mental rather than physical health.What S.B. 528 would have told us, is how many of the late-term abortions that are not partial-birth, which is all of them these days-about 400 a year--are done for mental vs. physical health of the mother.
In 1998, fetal anomaly (disability) was dropped as an exception to the ban on aborting viable babies. However a 2006 Los Angeles Times story featured several women who said they had (in recent years) had abortions for that reason at George Tiller's Wichita abortion clinic. These are either being done illegally or are being done if distress about having a baby with anomalies is being accepted by Tiller as a maternal "mental health" exception-clearly not the intention of the 1998 legislature that disapproved of disability as an excuse for killing viable unborn babies.
S.B. 528 would have required that abortionists state whether maternal reasons for aborting viable babies was mental or physical, plus it would have required that any anomalies of the baby be noted.
Now the people of Kansas nor their elected representatives who set public health policy won't know this information. Why? Because George Tiller, whose lobbyists fought hard to stop this bill, doesn't want us to know, and because his self-described "friend" in the Governor's office (whom he has heavily rewarded with campaign donations over the years) took care of it with her veto.
A special thanks to Senator Karin Brownlee who initiated the veto override attempt and to Senators Jordan, Wagle, Ostmeyer and Barnett who spoke eloquently and passionately in favor of overriding the Governor's veto of S.B. 528 during debate on the floor. A special NO thanks to senators who had voted for the bill earlier this session and then voted against the override: Senators Lee, Emler, Teichman and Schodorf.
Unfortunately, the Kansas Senate is not up for re-election this year, but the Kansas House is, as well as statewide offices. Look for KFL Political Action Committee endorsements along with details about the veto of S.B. 528, and Goveror Sebelius's ties to George Tiller, in the July 10 issue of the KFL Newsletter. You can view those details now at www.kfl.org, and you will be able to view KFL PAC endorsements online in late June at www.voteprolife.net.
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