Kansas Governor Sebelius Vetoes a Bill Requiring Doctors to Tell Why They Performed Abortions

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius vetoed a bill Monday requiring doctors to tell the state why aborted fetuses able to live outside the womb.

According to the Joplin Globe, Sebelius said doing so would open private medical records violating patients' privacy. The proposed bill also required doctors to say why the performed the abortions. This information would then be given to the Department of Health and environment and subsequently published in the annual report. Yet another privacy violation.

Abortion opponents had hoped publishing such data would give legislators ammunition to set policy and influence public opinion. It was included in the legislature's final spending bill. Though the governor signed the bill, she used her individual item veto power in spending bills saying it would require doctors to answer "open-ended" questions and reveal information about patients' medical conditions.

"Rather than collecting sound data that is able to be properly analyzed and protected, this proviso is likely to have little substantive effect, yet opens up patients' private medical information to public viewing," Sebelius wrote in her veto message. "This measure runs counter to Kansans' strong belief in the importance of medical privacy."

Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, calls Sebelius' statements concerning privacy "an outright lie," saying doctors use patient numbers rather than names in reporting information. "This was the very, very, very, very least she could have done to protect unborn children and their mothers, and once again she couldn't do it," Culp said.

Sebelius, a supporter of abortion rights, vetoed a bill last year requiring abortion reporting. Culp criticized Sebelius saying "She traded the lives of nearly born children, and safety and high standards of health care for women through required diagnosis, in exchange for political advocacy for the abortion industry that has supported her politically for years."

Yet, Julie Burkhart, a lobbyist for the abortion rights group ProKanDo, says that anti-abortion groups support abortion reporting so that they in turn have information to use when trying to ban certain abortions. Burkhart says that they are only trying to gain the information so they can construct a bill to prohibit reproductive health.

Supporters could try to override the veto, however doing so would require two-thirds majority vote in both chambers. The process would begin in the Senate where, according to Sen. Phil Journey, R-Haysville, an abortion opponent, two-thirds majority is unlikely.

Kansas law currently states that doctors can perform abortions after the 21st week if the mother's life is in danger or prevent "substantial and irreversible harm" to "a major bodily function." Though the law does not specifically include mental health as a substantial and irreversible harm, officials have enforced the law as if it is.

The current law was passed in 1998. Since that time, doctors have performed 4,480 late-term abortions. Fifty-four percent of them were viable fetuses. Almost all of these were for non resident patients.

The reporting system in use now requires doctors to report whether or not the fetus was viable and whether or not the mother's health/life were at stake. The information given is, however, general. The vetoed proposal would have required specifics concerning the threat to the mother believing that most are cited as mental health reasons.

Source:
"Kansas: Sebelius rejects proposal requiring new abortion reporting" The Associated Press. URL (http://www.joplinglobe.com/statenews/local_story_142003025.html)