Tag Archives: State: Kansas

Citizen Link: . . . Governor Sam Brownback signed into law the Kansas Preservation of Religious Freedom Act (HB 2203) which codifies important legal standards to be used in legal cases involving religious liberty concerns before Kansas Courts.

Topeka Capitol-Journal: The U.S. Supreme Court five years ago sided with the Kansas high court that Topekan Daryl Hendrix couldn’t be a part of the lives of two children conceived by artificial insemination using his sperm.

Topeka Capitol-Journal: A civil liberties group says a southwest Kansas school district is planning mandatory student assemblies with a creationist organization next week, something the district called a misunderstanding.

NewsTimes.com: The American Civil Liberties Union is objecting to a southwest Kansas district’s plans to allow a pro-creationism group into its schools to talk to students about dinosaurs.

LifeNews: When we found out that the new owner of the South Wind Women’s Center abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas had a practice in our own backyard, we knew we had to stage a full-blown protest outside her office, which we did.

Chicago Tribune: Kansas Governor Sam Brownback on Friday signed into law a far-reaching anti-abortion bill that creates new restrictions on the procedure and defines life as beginning “at fertilization.”

Religion Clause Blog: Yesterday, Kansas governor Sam Brownback signed HB 2203, the Preservation of Religious Freedom Act (full text). The new law provides in part . . .

James Taranto at WSJ: But as the Associated Press reports, abortion proponents are especially exercised about a provision “declaring that life begins ‘at fertilization’ ”

LifeSiteNews: Through an undercover investigation conducted by Operation Rescue, it has been learned that Chicago area abortionist Cheryl Chastine has made plans to fly to Wichita to provide abortions at South Wind Women’s Center, a proposed new abortion clinic located in George Tiller’s former abortion building on East Kellogg.

Kansas City Star: A bill defining human life as beginning at fertilization and outlawing any direct or indirect state support for abortions cruised to Senate approval Monday.

Kansas City Star: The first abortion clinic to operate in Wichita since the 2009 murder of physician George Tiller plans to open its doors this week despite continuing efforts by abortion foes to block it.

San Francisco Chronicle: The Kansas Senate has retained language in an anti-abortion bill directing doctors to provide information to women before terminating their pregnancies about a disputed potential link between abortion and breast cancer.

LifeNews: The Unborn Civil Rights bill (SB 142) passed the House yesterday by a vote of 89-33. This bill bans ‘wrongful birth and wrongful life’ lawsuits that claim a disabled child should have been aborted.

LJ World: A House committee has scheduled a public hearing for a bill that would prohibit an abortion if a fetal heartbeat is detectable. The hearing has been scheduled for 8 a.m. Tuesday before the House Federal and State Affairs Committee.

Laurence Journal-World: Anti-abortion advocates Thursday urged passage of a bill prohibiting abortions based on the sex of the unborn child.

LifeSiteNews: The Kansas House of Representatives voted 92-to-31 on Wednesday to strengthen protections for unborn babies, just one day after rejecting an amendment to the state’s late-term abortion ban that would have allowed abortions after 22 weeks in cases of rape or incest.

Kansas City Star: The Kansas House approved legislation Wednesday to prevent abortion providers from claiming tax breaks or assisting with public school sex education classes, and Senate leaders promised their chamber will consider it quickly. The vote in the Republican-dominated House was 92-31.

Kansas City Star: The Kansas House has rejected a proposal to make an exception to limits on late-term abortions for pregnancies resulting from rape, incest or sexual abuse of a child. House members voted 90-31 on Tuesday against an amendment to a sweeping anti-abortion bill offered by Lawrence Democrat John Wilson.

Religion Clause Blog: In United States v. Dillard, (D KS, March 7, 2013), a Kansas federal district court held that the clergy-communicant privilege extends only to members of the clergy and not to a lay counselor providing religious counseling or other support through a religious program.

Kansas City Star: A Kansas House committee is preparing to debate sweeping anti-abortion legislation aimed at ensuring the state doesn’t subsidize abortions even indirectly through tax exemptions or credits.

Education News: New Jersey’s governor has branded them “political thugs.” A former federal education official has likened them to terrorists. Less vilified in Kansas than some other parts of the country, those teachers unions still find their clout under attack in the Legislature.

Topeka Capital-Journal: Citing a first-of-its-kind Kansas Supreme Court ruling made Friday, Topekan Angela Bauer on Wednesday sought the right to intervene in a case in which the state contends sperm donor William Marotta is legally the father of the daughter born to her former lesbian partner, Jennifer Schreiner.

World: It’s one of many custody battles in which courts have ruled in favor of the “right” of same-sex couples to have children, instead of the right for children to have both a mother and father.

Jurist: The Kansas Supreme Court [official website] on Friday ruled [opinion, PDF] that a non-biological mother of children conceived using assisted reproductive technologies has parentage rights under Kansas law. Kelly Goudschaal and Marci Frazier were in a committed, long-term, same-sex relationship and had two children via artificial insemination. The couple executed a co-parenting agreement and after they separated, Frazier filed suit to enforce the agreement.

Kansas City Star: A bill forbidding the use of state money, tax credits or tax exemptions for abortion drew heated debate Wednesday in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee. House Bill 2253 also would bar the state from discriminating against any health-care provider that declines involvement in abortion.

San Francisco Chronicle: A proposal in the Kansas House would allow University of Kansas Medical Center students to receive privately funded abortion training.

Christian News: A lawmaker in Kansas has introduced a bill that seeks to protect the display of religious symbols in the state following threats from a prominent atheist organization that it would sue officials in one Kansas city if they did not remove a cross from their welcome sign.

McPherson Sentinel: The chaplaincy program is here to stay. The McPherson City Commission signed a resolution on Monday affirming the constitutional validity of the McPherson police chaplaincy program.

Topeka-Capitol Journal: Abortion opponents have delivered a rezoning petition with about 14,000 signatures to the Wichita City Council in a move to block the opening of a clinic at the building once owned by slain abortion provider George Tiller.

National Review Bench Memos: Great news out of Kansas. The Kansas senate overwhelmingly passed judicial selectionreforms on Wednesday. The constitutional amendment, required for the Kansas supreme court reforms, passed with a 28-12 vote, while the Senate Concurrent resolution, required for the Kansas Court of Appeals reforms, passed with a 29–10 vote, with one abstention. The Capital Journal has more . . .

Kansas City Star: The Kansas House is considering a bill that would allow the display of religious symbols on public lands, if the symbols are considered part of a community’s history or heritage.

Kansas City Star: The number of abortions performed in America has been on the decline for a generation. Yet in few states has the trend been more dramatic in recent years than in Kansas, a change driven by a series of laws limiting the procedure and by the violent death of the state’s most prominent abortion doctor in 2009.

National Review Bench Memos: Hearings in Kansas over judicial selection reform continued yesterday, as two members of Kansas’s judicial nominating commission testified for the House Judiciary Committee. They attested to what Bench Memos readers already know—that the commission masks partisan politics in the name of “merit.”

AP: The case of a Kansas sperm donor being sued by the state for child support underscores a confusing patchwork of aging laws that govern assisted reproduction in the United States and often lead to litigation and frustration among would-be parents.

NY Times: The agreement followed a federal judge’s Jan. 7 ruling that, as a matter of law, the A.C.L.U. failed to provide any evidence that the Kansas Legislature’s predominant motivation in passing the 2011 law was to make it more difficult to get abortions.

LifeNews: A formal complaint has been filed with the City of Wichita against Julie Burkhart and two associated business entities, which presents evidence that remodeling and other work is taking place illegally at a proposed new abortion clinic in Wichita without the proper permits. The complaint requests that an infraction notice be filed and a cease and desist order be issued to halt all construction at the building.

Kansas City Star: The former Wichita clinic of slain abortion provider George Tiller is expected to open in the next few months with one full-time and two part-time doctors amid heightened security and community outreach efforts, its new owners said.

AP: Kansas’ law that restricts private health insurance coverage for abortions will go to trial to resolve whether it poses a substantial obstacle to women seeking to end pregnancies, a federal judge ruled Monday.

NPR reports (includes audio).

The Topeka Capitol Journal: The state agency seeking child support payments from a Topeka man who donated sperm to a lesbian couple says one of the women “clearly deceived” the department.

AP: Kansas law governing artificial insemination is outdated and fails to recognize modern concepts of family, according to the attorney for a Topeka man being pursued to pay child support for a girl born to a lesbian couple as the result of his sperm donation.

Kansas City Star: Another big showdown over abortion brewing in the federal courts could have meaning for Kansas. Two years ago, Kansas was among just a handful of states to ban abortion starting at 22 weeks — with some limited exceptions — regardless of whether the fetus was able to survive outside the womb.

AP: The state contends the agreement between Marotta and the women is not valid because Kansas law requires a licensed physician to perform artificial insemination.

LifeNews: Two pro-abortion activists attacked the office of the pro-life group Operation Rescue and destroyed a security camera at the organization’s central Kansas headquarters.

Volokh Conspiracy:  There’s a petition so urging (with 30,000 signatures); there’s another petition asking that the church be “[l]egally recognize[d] … as a hate group” and subject to “some form of imposed regulation.” Is such stripping of a tax exemption based on the group’s “hate” viewpoint, or other similar “regulation,” constitutional?

McPhersonSentinel.com:  The city of McPherson announced Monday it would continue to pursue a police chaplaincy program. The city received a letter Dec. 3 from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, asking the city to cease its chaplaincy program. The foundation alleged the program was a violation of the separation of church and state.

McPhersonSentinel.com: The city of McPherson is consulting with its legal counsel after it received a letter Monday from the Freedom From Religion Foundation requesting it cease its police chaplaincy program.

The Hill: Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) warned his conference on Wednesday that leaders are “watching” how the rank-and-file vote to determine committee assignments, according to sources in the closed-door meeting.

San Francisco Chronicle (AP): The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to order a Kansas abortion opponent to answer the government’s questions about her relationship with the man convicted in the murder of abortion provider George Tiller, including compelling her to admit to statements she made to The Associated Press in which she said she admired the then-accused killer.

National Review Online Bench Memos: As if the governor needed more excuses to make the issue a priority, the state’s judicial nominating commission decided to kick sand in his eyes by sending him a disappointing slate of finalists for a Court of Appeals vacancy.

Journal Star: An anti-abortion group wants Nebraska lawmakers to pass legislation that requires four-dimensional ultrasound images of human fetuses to be posted on a state website.

KWCH: Some people want to see Buhler’s city seal change and the mayor says, it’s a battle that’s just too expensive to fight.

AP: A Kansas appeals court attorney was fired Monday after using foul language about the state’s former attorney general in comments she posted to Twitter last week.

LifeSiteNews: Research attorney suspended for nasty tweets about Phill Kline: Report The Associated Press is now reporting that the research attorney who tweeted nasty and disparaging comments about Phill Kline – Sarah Peterson Herr – was suspended Friday morning, pending …

Life Legal Defense Foundation Executive Director Dana Cody and Legal Counsel Tom Condit will be available for media interviews immediately following former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline’s oral arguments before the Kansas Supreme Court this Thursday. Representing the Kansas Bar, Stanton Hazlett has accused Mr. Kline of ten violations of the Kansas Rules of Professional Conduct in relation to Mr. Kline’s criminal investigation of abortion providers Planned Parenthood and the late Dr. George Tiller.

LifeNews: Leading pro-life attorney Phill Kline is involved in the fight for his life tomorrow at the Kansas Supreme Court — which political enemies may strip him of his law license for daring to prosecute Planned Parenthood.

CJOnline.com: Kline has strongly disputed the allegations against him and called the complaint politically motivated. “I upheld my duty, upheld my oath of office and the integrity of my profession,” Kline said. “I will continue to speak and stand for the truth and for those who cannot speak for themselves. My ‘mistake’ was my willingness to investigate politically powerful people and to let that investigation go where the evidence led.”

Kansas.com: Voters in Salina and Hutchinson rejected ordinances offering legal protection from discrimination to members of the gay community.

The Hill: So far, six states have passed laws that seek to defund Planned Parenthood on their own — and the courts have blocked all six.

San Francisco Chronicle: Pompeo: No rape exception in anti-abortion view
U.S. Rep. Mike Pompeo said he believes abortions should be allowed only when necessary to save the life of the mother, while his Democratic challenger Robert Tillman vows to back abortion rights.

Kansas.com: O’Donnell’s residence at 1435 W. Haskell in south Wichita, which has been off the tax rolls since at least 2002 as a Grace Baptist Church parsonage, is subject to property taxes because it is not being used as a church parsonage, appraisers’ officials ruled in September.

Brian Walsh at National Review: Today, a bipartisan group of over 100 legislators in nine states is announcing the nation’s first state legislative caucuses focused solely on religious freedom. These working groups of legislative leaders are being established in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. This is the first installment in a national plan to form state religious-freedom caucuses in all 50 states by the end of 2013.

LJWorld: Claiming religious freedom is under assault, 120 legislators in nine states, including Kansas, announced on Tuesday the formation of caucuses that they said would be dedicated to protecting religion from government intrusion.

LifeSiteNews: Operation Rescue has been informed by the Office of the Disciplinary Administrator that ethics complaints filed against Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe have been docketed and will be investigated.

Sacramento Bee (AP): A Kansas doctor who lost her license over abortion referrals is fighting efforts by state regulators to force her to post a bond to cover nearly $93,000 in costs as she appeals to the courts.

AP: The shuttered Wichita abortion clinic formerly operated by the late Dr. George Tiller has been bought by an abortion-rights group that intends to reopen it . . .

HSLDA: Despite an earlier threat to discuss new legislation to create homeschool regulations, we are happy to report that the Kansas State Board of Education’s agenda for its coming September 18–19 meeting contains no reference whatsoever to homeschooling or private schools. This saga began on Tuesday, August 14. The Lawrence Journal-World reported Board Chairman David Dennis as saying that perhaps the board should propose legislation to increase state reporting requirements for homeschoolers to ensure that children are being taught. The board agreed to discuss the issue further at its September meeting.

Sacramento Bee: An anti-abortion group has filed an ethics complaint against Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt over the dismissal of a criminal case against a Kansas City-area Planned Parenthood clinic.

Sacramento Bee: The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said Thursday the constitutional amendment that created a nominating commission more than a half century ago is a testament to the state’s commitment to judicial independence.

CJOnline: Three of the state’s top elected Republicans on Thursday determined they lacked sufficient evidence of President Barack Obama’s birth records to decide whether to remove the Democratic nominee from the November ballot in Kansas.

Volokh Conspiracy: Soleimani v. Soleimani (Kan. Dist. Ct., Johnson Cty., No. 11CV4668, Aug. 28, 2012) is a very interesting decision on enforcing Muslim premarital agreements in American courts. (For more interesting recent cases on this, see here and here.) The decision is long and detailed, and I can’t do it full justice, but here are some excerpts. First, the facts . . .

The Daily Union: An advocacy group has raised questions about the tax-exempt house in Wichita where a Republican candidate for the state Senate lives.

KansasCity.com: People who have Internet access will be able to watch Kansas Supreme Court arguments live online starting next week.

LifeNews: “We call on Howe and others involved to immediately resign and we call for an independent investigation into this conspiracy to obstruct justice,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “This is corruption, plain and simple.”

Pro Life Blogs: New documents obtained by Operation Rescue through Kansas Open Records Act requests prove that records crucial to the criminal prosecution of Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood of Overland Park that were said to have been destroyed currently exist and were placed under seal in the custody of the Shawnee County Clerk of the Court by Judge Richard Anderson on January 12, 2012.