The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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May 21, 2007

Kansas: Sebelius rejects proposal requiring new abortion reporting



The Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. — Saying it would open private medical records to public viewing, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on Monday vetoed a proposal to require doctors to tell the state exactly why they aborted fetuses able to survive outside the womb.

The measure also directed the Department of Health and Environment to summarize the information it received from doctors about why they performed the procedure and include it in annual reports the agency already publishes.

Some abortion opponents had hoped the increased reporting would give legislators data they could use to set policy — and influence public opinion. Lawmakers included the new requirements in the year’s final spending bill.

While Sebelius signed the bill, she used her power to veto individual items in spending measures to block the tougher reporting requirements. Sebelius said doctors would face “open-ended” questions and be required to divulge details about each patient’s medical condition.

“Rather than collecting sound data that is able to be properly analyzed and protected, this proviso is likely to have little substantive effect, yet opens up patients’ private medical information to public viewing,” Sebelius wrote in her veto message. “This measure runs counter to Kansans’ strong belief in the importance of medical privacy.”

Backers of the proposal said patients’ privacy already is protected because doctors assign patients numbers and don’t submit their names to the state. Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, called the governor’s statement about privacy “a blatant, outright lie.”

“This was the very, very, very, very least she could have done to protect unborn children and their mothers, and once again she couldn’t do it,” Culp said.

Sebelius, a strong abortion rights supporter, also vetoed an abortion-reporting bill last year.

This year, Culp said, “She traded the lives of nearly born children, and safety and high standards of health care for women through required diagnosis, in exchange for political advocacy for the abortion industry that has supported her politically for years.”

But Julie Burkhart, a lobbyist for the abortion rights group ProKanDo, said anti-abortion groups sought the increased reporting so they would have information to guide them when they sought to ban certain abortions.

“It’s the anti-choice faction trying to get at women’s personal and private information, so they can go back and construct a bill that’s going to outlaw a certain aspect of reproductive health,” Burkhart said.

Supporters of the provision could attempt to override Sebelius’ veto Tuesday, when legislators reconvene for a daylong session to tackle disaster relief issues. But doing so would require two-thirds majorities in both chambers, or 27 of 40 votes in the Senate and 84 of 125 in the House.

An attempt to override would start in the Senate, which is typically less opposed to abortion than the House. Sen. Phil Journey, R-Haysville, said he and fellow abortion opponents probably won’t be able to build a two-thirds majority, just as they weren’t last year.

“The odds of that motion being made are unlikely at first blush,” he said.

Kansas law says that after the 21st week of pregnancy, a doctor can abort a viable fetus to save a woman’s life or to prevent “substantial and irreversible harm” to “a major bodily function.” Although the law doesn’t specifically say that a major bodily function includes mental health, officials have enforced the law as if it did.

Also, obtaining such an abortion requires a second opinion from a doctor with no financial or legal tie to the abortion provider.

Since the law took effect in 1998, doctors in Kansas have performed 4,480 late-term abortions. About 2,600, or 54 percent of them, were on viable fetuses. Almost all the abortions involving viable fetuses were for non-Kansas residents.

Currently, doctors report each late-term procedure, whether the fetus was viable and whether the abortion preserved a woman’s life or her health. Physicians must state generally how they made those assessments.

But abortion opponents wanted doctors to spell out the medical condition leading to each abortion of a viable fetus, believing most are for mental health reasons.

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