Topeka ? Faced with a legislative mandate to mount a broad legal challenge against abortion, Atty. Gen. Phill Kline is still trying to determine how best to get the case into court.

Kline opposes abortion, but said during an interview this week with The Associated Press that he wanted to make sure both abortion foes and abortion rights activists had a chance to present their evidence to the courts.

The case is supposed to raise the question of whether life begins at conception and, if so, whether abortion represents a violation of fundamental constitutional rights. Some legislators who pushed the idea hope such a case eventually will force the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

Exploring the issues

“There’s a lot of legal complexity about how to appropriately get the case heard, so that both sides can present a full course of evidence and it can move up through the court system,” Kline said. “All of those issues are being explored.”

In 2002, before Kline took office, the state House adopted a resolution requiring the legal challenge to abortion. The resolution directed the case be filed after Feb. 1, 2003, because anti-abortion legislators had misgivings about leaving the challenge to Kline’s predecessor, Carla Stovall, who supported abortion rights.

The resolution noted that the first section of the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights declares, “All men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The resolution continued: “The right to life, logically enumerated first, is the basic, most fundamental right without which all others are meaningless.”

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.

“Need to get going”

“The Legislature’s directed me to bring a legal issue before a court of law, and that I will do, as I’m required to do by statute,” Kline said. “It’s got to be within this next year. We need to get that case going.”

Kansas law currently permits a woman to obtain an abortion for any reason until a fetus is able to survive outside the womb.

There is a parental notice requirement and restrictions on late-term abortions, although anti-abortion activists believe they are ineffective. The law also requires doctors to counsel patients about fetal development, health risks and alternatives to abortion.

The resolution said “undeniable medical, biological and scientific facts” show that “the unborn children in the state of Kansas have an equal and inalienable right to life from conception/and fertilization.” It also said “termination of the lives of innocent human beings even before birth” violates the state constitution.

The resolution directs Kline to file a lawsuit with the Kansas Supreme Court and other courts “as may be warranted,” naming Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a supporter of abortion rights, as a defendant, along with the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services.

Potential cost

However, Kline said he had misgivings about filing a case directly with the Supreme Court, rather than in district court.

“I don’t believe that’s advisable, nor do I think it will happen,” he said. “The Supreme Court doesn’t hear evidence. The Supreme Court reviews a lower court’s analysis of law, so I believe they’d be very reluctant to accept a full-blown trial.”

Kline said he also was worried about the potential cost of such a lawsuit.

“A lot of it is expert testimony, medical experts and others, and there’s a tremendous cost to that,” he said.

He added: “My goal is to figure out how to structure this lawsuit and then to invite those who support abortion to help fund their side of the defense and those who oppose abortion to help fund their side of the forwarding of the case.”