TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Prominent anti-abortion legislators in Kansas expect to debate the issue again next year, despite the killing of late-term abortion provider George Tiller.
Those legislators pushed through a bill this year to rewrite the state’s restrictions on late-term abortions, only to see it vetoed. Tiller’s Wichita clinic has been among a few in the U.S. performing third-trimester abortions, and legislation has frequently targeted him.
Tiller was shot to death Sunday while serving as an usher at the Lutheran church he attended. Scott Roeder, 51, has been charged with first-degree murder in Tiller’s death.
Anti-abortion legislators didn’t agree Thursday about what will happen when the Legislature, now out of session, reconvenes in January. Some said it’s too early to make predictions.
But House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lance Kinzer, the primary author of this year’s bill, said Kansas’ restrictions on abortion still aren’t being enforced properly.
“There are things we can do to fix that,” he added.
“They reality is, we have an obligation as legislators that we have just laws that are enforced,” said Kinzer, an Olathe Republican.
Abortion has been a perennial issue for legislators, with questions about Tiller’s clinic often at the center of the debate. Abortion-rights activists have long argued that the legislation pushed by anti-abortion groups is designed to restrict access.
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, an abortion-rights Democrat, repeatedly vetoed anti-abortion legislation, including Kinzer’s measure this year. She resigned in April to become U.S. secretary of health and human services, and new Gov. Mark Parkinson, also a Democrat, has said his views are “very similar” to hers.
He has said since that the state should work to reduce unwanted pregnancies, and on Monday he called on groups on both sides to tone down their rhetoric.
Rep. Tom Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat who supports abortion rights, said he would like to see legislators take a year off from debating the issue, but he’s not hopeful that they will.
“It’d be nice to have one session where we didn’t have to debate it,” he said. “People who are adamant, who keep bringing up these issues, are going to keep bringing them up. I don’t think it’s going to slow them down.”
Rep. Jan Pauls, an anti-abortion Hutchinson Democrat, said one key issue is whether Tiller’s clinic reopens.
But Sen. Mary Pilcher Cook, an anti-abortion Shawnee Republican, said she’s still trying to analyze what Tiller’s death means. She said the killing highlights the same issues abortion opponents have always raised in pushing legislation: the sanctity of life and the rule of law.
“I think people have to be allowed to grieve,” she said.
Sen. Tim Huelskamp, a Fowler Republican, said abortion opponents’ attention will turn in the short term to the State Board of Healing Arts, which licenses and regulates doctors, and the courts, with a criminal case against a Planned Parenthood clinic pending in Johnson County.
But Huelskamp also predicted that legislators still will want to review potential changes in Kansas law.
House Speaker Mike O’Neal, a Hutchinson Republican who opposes abortion, said “things will calm down a great deal” in coming months.
“All those issues are still there,” he said. “As long as the parties on both sides behave themselves and not let the rhetoric get out hand, I think we can stay focused on the issues.”
Late Term is the Problem
I'm pro choice, but not in the third trimester. Come on, they are viable fetuses. You're telling me it's okay to abort a baby, but if it was born naturally the following day and then killed it's murder?
The way the law is written it is way to loose. While some of the babies the doctor aborted were severely deformed (but why weren't they detected earlier?) others were aborted because, get this, the mother was depressed or had "anxiety." The bottom line is that anyone can get a third trimester abortion in Kansas by saying they are anxious. It just isn't right.