Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Anti-Choice Kansas DA Loses Reelection Bid

Phill Kline, a district attorney from Johnson County in Kansas, has lost the primary that would have allowed him to run for reelection on the Republican ticket.

Kline made a name for himself as the Attorney General of Kansas by filing a large number of charges against late-term abortion provider Dr. Tiller with little to no evidence. Dr. Tiller is one of the few abortion providers in the country who provides second and third trimester abortions for women facing serious medical conditions or severe fetal deformities. Women travel from all over the U.S., during a very difficult time in their lives, to receive Dr. Tiller's care, but anti-choice activists have falsely held Dr. Tiller up as a stereotypical "evil abortion provider" and made it their mission to shut down his clinic. (Dr. Tiller was even shot in an anti-chioce assassination attempt in 1994.) Phill Kline therefore won anti-choice adoration by filing charges upon charges against Tiller, no matter how many times those charges were discredited. When Kline lost his position as Attorney General, he then won the job of District Attorney of Johnson County, a position which he used to file very flimsy criminal charges against a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Steve Howe, Kline's opponent in the primary race who also opposes abortion rights, campaigned on an argument that Kline had allowed politics rather than facts to dictate his actions. Voters apparently agreed. Despite $100,000 spent by anti-choice forces from across the U.S. in attempt to reelect Kline, the citizens of Johnson County ultimately made up their own minds and decided that they didn't want to be represented by an ideologically extreme person.

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