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NRL News
Former
Kansas AG Phill Kline to Speak at NRLC 2007 Mention the name Phill Kline to any pro-lifer in Kansas or Missouri, and the reaction would likely mirror Mary Kay Culp’s. Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, told NRL News that the former Kansas Attorney General “is someone who ‘gets it.’ He not only understands that abortion is brutal, he can also explain this in a way that changes hearts and minds.” Kline, who became attorney general for Johnson County after losing a re-election bid in 2006, will speak at NRLC 2007. This three-day educational extravaganza will take place June 14–16 in Kansas City. (For details on how to register, see the end of this article and pages 14–15.) Kline was the object of a ferocious, sustained, and ultimately successful attack by the major newspapers in Kansas. His “crimes” were to try to enforce the state’s restrictions on late-term abortion and Kansas’s long-standing statutory rape law. He told PBS’s David Brancaccio last year, “My motivation is to enforce the law. And the law in Kansas says that when you have a ten-year-old who is pregnant, the child has been raped.” Planned Parenthood vigorously opposed his efforts, saying they would interfere with patient confidentiality. The major media in Kansas agreed and Kline came under a withering assault. After winning narrowly in 2002 he was defeated for a second term as state attorney general by Paul Morrison. Kline previously served as a state representative from 1992 until 2000. During that time Kline introduced numerous pro-life bills. He was also honored as “Legislator of the Year” by the disability community in Kansas. Kline’s philosophy was clearly on display in a profile that ran in the November 2006 GQ. “When we apply a utilitarian measure to human life—‘Do I want to have this baby?’ ‘Can I afford to have this baby?’—it permeates all our thinking to the point where it undermines our ability to protect the inherent rights of the most vulnerable people in society. The disabled and the elderly and so on,” he said. If we apply this utilitarian calculus, Kline added, it “debases the promise of this country’s constitution. It’s inescapable.” Kline will speak Thursday, June 14, at 8:00 p.m. For detailed information about the convention, including how to register, you can go to pages 17–18, go online to www.nrlc.org/convention/index.html, or call the convention office at (202) 378-8842. |