By DAVID KLEPPER
The Star’s Topeka correspondent
TOPEKA — The Kansas Supreme Court today ordered a district judge to reconsider subpoenas issued at Attorney General Phill Kline’s request for abortion clinic medical records.
The unanimous ruling orders Shawnee County District Judge Richard Anderson to use tightly drawn restrictions on any requests for medical records.
That means Kline’s investigation of late-term abortion and sexual predators may go forward, but only if the court’s demands are met to keep the privacy of clinic patients.
The ruling, awaited for nearly a year, was released about 9:30 a.m. today.
Kline is seeking the complete medical records of 90 girls and women who received abortions at two Kansas abortion clinics. He said the records — containing the sexual, mental and physical health histories of patients — are vital to investigating illegal late term abortions and child predators.
The two clinics — the Comprehensive Health clinic in Overland Park and the Women’s Health Care clinic in Wichita — asked the Kansas Supreme Court to intervene after a Shawnee County judge issued subpoenas at Kline’s request. The clinics said that the subpoenas were too broad and that unless the request was limited, it constituted a violation of their patient’s privacy.
