I post the following abortion story as a jumping off point to talk about a couple of very important maxims that lawyers know all about (and the general public only vaguely understands):

The following are my own paraphrasing of complex crucial concepts:

“The power to regulate is tantamount to the power to prohibit.”
“Prosecutors have almost unlimited power.”

In the guise of regulation, government agencies can do almost anything they want, unless the victim files a lawsuit and gets a sympathetic judge to stop the abuse of authority.

If a prosecutor gets a bug up his butt about a particular issue in society, the prosecutor can investigate and prosecute, and do it some more, until the victim is bankrupt, or until he can finally get a conviction or plea agreement.

In the story that follows, the Kansas Attorney General (the official State prosecutor) is apparently using his power to crusade against abortion by investigating, in essence, the abortion history of the citizens of the State of Kansas.

He wishes to scare Kansas citizens into not having abortions, for fear that the State might gain access to their medical records and come knocking on their doors. That’s his goal. The AG is probably a religious conservative and truly believes he is doing God’s work.

Also, his purported rationale (looking for evidence of sex abuse of minors or illegal late term abortions) is hard to argue with, for who in their right mind is FOR sex abuse of minors?

BUT - the AG’s REAL motive is NOT to uncover sex abuse of minors —- it’s to chill the right to abortion. And, the AG will NOT tell you that is his REAL motive —— And so the AG is nothing more than a propagandist and a radical religious fanatic on that issue, willing to lie to the people on behalf of his religion. That’s just my theory — and if I’m right, SHAME on the AG for acting immorally by not telling the truth.

By the way, I have no problem with persuading people against abortion using peaceful non-coercive means. As Clinton said so well, abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.”

CNN.com - Kansas�AG demands abortion records - Feb 25, 2005: “Kansas AG demands abortion records
Full records include women’s sexual histories

Friday, February 25, 2005 Posted: 5:13 AM EST (1013 GMT)

story.vert.kline.jpg
Kline began pushing in 2003 to require health care professionals to report underage sexual activity.

TOPEKA, Kansas (AP) — The Kansas attorney general is demanding abortion clinics turn over the complete medical records of nearly 90 women and girls, saying he needs the material for an investigation into underage sex and illegal late-term abortions.

Two clinics are fighting the request in Kansas Supreme Court, saying the state has no right to such personal information.

But Attorney General Phill Kline, an abortion opponent, insisted Thursday: ‘I have the duty to investigate and prosecute child rape and other crimes in order to protect Kansas children.’”