Thursday, October 18, 2007

A county prosecutor in Kansas who waged a vociferous battle against abortion in his former role as the state’s attorney general filed dozens of felony and misdemeanor charges yesterday against a Planned Parenthood clinic, saying the facility provided illegal late-term abortions, among other crimes.

The prosecutor, Phill Kline, now the Johnson County district attorney, has a history of wrangling with the clinic, Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. When he was the state attorney general, from 2002 until last year, Mr. Kline, a conservative Republican, developed a reputation for challenging abortion providers.

In a suit that brought national attention to Kansas as a battleground for abortion rights, Mr. Kline sought the names and personal information of women and girls who had had abortions at the Planned Parenthood clinic and one other medical facility. Early last year, the State Supreme Court restricted the investigation, ruling that personal information must be removed from the records Mr. Kline sought. Mr. Kline’s effort to prosecute the clinics ultimately failed.

In a statement posted on his Web site, Mr. Kline said he would not comment on yesterday’s charges, which included 29 felony counts of providing false information and 84 misdemeanor counts of failure to maintain records, failure to determine viability for a late-term abortion and unlawful late-term abortion.

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Ashley Anstaett, a spokeswoman for the current state attorney general, Paul Morrison, told The Associated Press that Mr. Morrison had already reviewed the accusations Mr. Kline’s criminal charges are based on and found no wrongdoing.

“We are skeptical that these charges have any merit, and we continue to wonder how much politics influenced Mr. Kline’s decision to file these charges,” Ms. Anstaett said.