House orders attack on Roe

? The House is trying to start a broad legal attack on abortion, one that some members hope will lead the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its decision in Roe v. Wade.

On a 70-50 vote Thursday, the House adopted a resolution ordering the Attorney General’s Office to go before the Kansas Supreme Court and argue for a declaration that life begins at conception.

Proponents believe any Kansas ruling would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, giving it a chance to reconsider the 1973 Roe decision legalizing abortion nationwide.

“Everybody pretty much assumes that,” said Rep. Bruce Larkin, D-Baileyville, the resolution’s main sponsor.

Rep. Rick Rehorn, D-Kansas City, an attorney who supports abortion rights, called the resolution “a direct attack on Roe v. Wade.”

“What’s determined in a Kansas court is not going to be the law of the land,” he said. “Ultimately, to change that decision, it’s going to take the U.S. Supreme Court or a federal constitutional amendment.”

Abortion opponents hope the state Supreme Court will rule that a fetus is entitled to the rights protected by the Kansas Constitution, including the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The House acted under a 1975 law requiring the attorney general to raise constitutional questions with the Kansas Supreme Court when directed to do so by either chamber of the Legislature.

Under the resolution, the Attorney General’s Office must sue the governor and the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, arguing that “upon conception/fertilization, there is life.”

The resolution specifies that the lawsuit be filed on or after Feb. 1, 2003 Â after a new attorney general takes office. Incumbent Carla Stovall, an abortion rights supporter, is running for governor.

Stovall did not comment directly Thursday on the resolution.

“I think we’ll leave this to the next attorney general,” said her spokeswoman, Mary Tritsch.

Sen. David Adkins, of Leawood, an abortion rights supporter, and former state Rep. Phill Kline, of Shawnee, an abortion opponent, are running this year for the Republican nomination for attorney general. No Democratic candidate has announced.

“A lot of overtones of the current attorney general’s race are attached to this,” said House Minority Leader Jim Garner, D-Coffeyville.

Not all abortion opponents liked the resolution.

Rep. Tony Powell voted for it despite misgivings about whether it would produce the ruling that anti-abortion forces want.

Powell said he believes the Kansas court will refuse to hear the case and tell legislators it is their task to determine when life begins and what such a declaration means.

“I don’t believe it’s the silver bullet the proponents think it is,” said Powell, R-Wichita.

Some critics of the resolution questioned the validity of the statute creating the attorney general’s duty to sue on orders of either the House or the Senate. That statute was an amendment to an 1879 law designating the attorney general as the state’s representative in court.

However, the statute has not been challenged in court, and in 1993, then-Atty. Gen. Bob Stephan complied with an order from the Senate to file a lawsuit to resolve gambling issues.

“We are the client,” Powell said. “We have the right to tell our lawyer to go file a lawsuit.”

Anti-abortion resolution is HR 6003.