TOPEKA, Kan., March 15 (UPI) -- A legal tug-of-war is under way between two Kansas abortion clinics and the state attorney general, who wants women's names, the Washington Post reports.
The clinics are resisting efforts by Attorney General Phill Kline to obtain the medical records of more than 80 women who received late-term abortions in 2003.
Backed with a subpoena, Kline said he is looking for evidence of child rape and violations of a state law restricting abortions performed after 22 weeks of pregnancy.
Clinic attorneys argued in a brief to the Kansas Supreme Court: "The logical and natural progression of this action could well be a knock on the door of a woman who exercised her constitutional right to privacy, by special agents of the attorney general who seek to inquire into her personal, medical, sexual or legal history."
Kline's attorneys argued in a March 3 brief to the Kansas Supreme Court the clinics were denying "critical evidence of a child rape."
Last week, a Kansas legislator proposed a bill requiring anyone who performs an abortion on a girl younger than 16, the state's age of consent, to preserve fetal tissue to help establish paternity in cases defined as child rape.
