In his very public rebuke of Sebelius, the Archbishop joined a swelling grass roots chorus of those who would be silent no longer about the state’s unlikely status as abortion capital.  This chorus includes church leaders, a variety of pro-life groups, some stalwart Republican public officials, and more than a few unaffiliated concerned citizens.  Serving as choirmaster is the much-maligned District Attorney of Johnson County, Phill Kline.

For years, the media have steadfastly refused to ask themselves—why Kansas?  The answer, as Kline has revealed, is not that the state has uniquely liberal abortion laws, but that the state has been uniquely indifferent to the law’s enforcement.  Therein lies the scandal.

Tiller works the system

The story could begin in any number of places, but a likely starting place is 2002, the year Sebelius ran for governor and Kline ran for Attorney General.

A state representative from suburban Kansas City, Kline, then just 42, showed real promise of becoming a statewide, even a national political leader.  Good looking and well spoken, Kline had the advantage of being a Republican in a state that gave George Bush 60 percent of its vote both times.  He had the disadvantage, however, of being unapologetically pro-life in a state whose reigning political establishment prized “moderation” even above party affiliation.

As a state representative five years earlier, Kline had helped draft legislation to check the state’s then thriving late-term abortion business.  The new law allowed for a late-term abortion on a viable baby only “to preserve the life of the pregnant women” or to prevent her from suffering “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”

Although these exemptions are required by Roe v. Wade, pro-life groups accept them because they know, as Kline did, that in no known circumstances does a late-term abortion spare a woman substantial physical or mental impairment, let alone her life. The bill also required abortion doctors to submit a one-page report to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) documenting the reason for a late-term abortion. 

The new law and the reporting requirement should have put an end to the late-term business of Dr. Tiller and a handful of others, but by this time Tiller had learned to work the system.  His first step was to use his influence to finesse a mental health exception. But even the then attorney general, moderate Republican Carla Stovall, insisted that mental health problems had to be "permanent and substantial” to justify a late-term abortion.

Undaunted, Tiller made enough strategic donations to enough politicians to assure that no one enforced the law as written or even as interpreted.  In fact, the number on late-term abortions in Kansas actually increased in the three years after the restrictions were passed and began to decrease only after Kline announced for attorney general.

When Kline chose to run in 2001, Tiller sensed trouble and responded accordingly.  He invested indirectly in his moderate Republican primary opponent, and when Kline prevailed, funneled more money still into the campaign of Kline’s general election opponent, an obscure mid-state Democrat named Chris Biggs.

Like an old world mafia don, Tiller understood that he and his business, though tolerated, could not be embraced publicly.  Were Biggs to receive campaign cash from Tiller himself or his ProKanDo political action committee (PAC), the GOP would use that information against Biggs.   So Tiller and Democratic operatives set up a separate PAC called Kansans for Democratic Leadership (KDL).

KDL existed for a total of 36 days.  Except for a $1,000 donation from a labor union, all of KDL’s $265,000 reported income came from ProKanDo or Tiller himself, and none of these transactions were made public until after the election. Chairing KDL was Tom Sawyer, a Democratic state representative from Wichita and a recipient of Tiller’s largesse.  In 2002, no PAC in Kansas spent more than ProKanDo.

Given the pro-choice bias even in Midwest newsrooms, most of the state’s media endorsed the unheralded Biggs.  The then-governor, moderate Republican Bill Graves, refused to endorse Kline.  The KDL-sponsored ads heated up the airwaves in the last weeks, warning Kansans about the extremist in their midst.  And a badly bruised Kline eked out a half-percent victory in an election that should have been a landslide.

A more opportunistic politician would have heeded the message from the moderate establishment and left the abortion industry alone, but Kline was not easily dissuaded.

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