Topeka ? The Republican and Democratic candidates for Kansas attorney general have different ideas about a House-passed resolution that seeks to launch a legal battle to declare life starts at conception.

Republican attorney general candidate Phill Kline, who opposes abortion, said he is ready to carry the resolution to court.

If elected Nov. 5, Kline said he would sit down with the authors of the resolution to learn their intent.

“We’re the attorney for the state, so the state as their attorney can ask us to do things,” he said.

But his Democratic opponent, Chris Biggs, said he had serious doubts a court action could be based on the resolution. Biggs has said he opposes abortion but will defend current law, which recognizes a woman’s right to an abortion.

A former Kansas attorney general, Republican Bob Stephan, who has endorsed Kline, agrees with Biggs on the House resolution. When read the resolution, Stephan called it “mind-boggling.”

Approved March 25 by a 70-50 House vote, the resolution states that life starts at conception-fertilization, that unborn children have a constitutional right to life and that allowing their termination violates the state Bill of Rights.

The resolution requires the attorney general to plead that argument before the Kansas Supreme Court or other courts.

Stephan said that in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a woman has a right to an abortion. Any attempt in state court to run counter would be futile, he said. But the next attorney general may feel compelled to file a lawsuit based on the resolution simply to appease the Legislature.

“Any lawyer can file anything,” he said. “I can’t imagine anyone being successful. You could go ahead and file it and pamper the Legislature and then get your tail kicked out of court.”

Biggs, a prosecutor from Geary County, agreed that the abortion issue is ruled by federal law. He called the resolution “political grandstanding,” but he said he would research it before deciding what to do.

Biggs said if the Legislature wanted to further restrict abortions, it should pass a state law. In that way, the law could be challenged to determine whether it passes constitutional muster.

Rep. Bruce Larkin, D-Baileyville, who opposes abortion and was one of the main proponents of the resolution, said the measure was seen as a way to try to challenge Roe v. Wade.

“If you could get something moving through the court system, it always has the potential of winding up at the U.S. Supreme Court and has the potential of overturning the Roe v. Wade decision,” Larkin said.

But Biggs said it doesn’t work that way. Courts only hear cases when the constitutionality of a law is in question, not on theoretical questions. In addition, he said the Roe v. Wade decision was based on a woman’s privacy rights and has nothing to do with the question of when life begins.

Kline, however, said the substance of the resolution and the decision by the House to pursue it wasn’t relevant. What is relevant, he said, is that lawmakers can direct the attorney general to represent the state in court.

“As I have looked at the Constitution and case law, any branch of government, including the Legislature, can direct this,” he said.

The Kansas Senate has not followed the House’s suit on the resolution.