Wichita ? Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline on Tuesday appealed a federal judge’s decision that health care providers and others are not required under state law to report underage sex between consenting adolescents.

“There’s no prosecution of children of a similar age who are engaging in consensual activity, but the court has called into question the Kansas law which requires the report of child rape, and we’re hopeful that the 10th Circuit will reverse, as it previously did,” Kline said.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten’s ruling places the state’s abuse reporting law in jeopardy, Kline said.

The central issue of the case is Kline’s interpretation that a 1982 Kansas law requiring doctors, teachers and others to alert the state and law enforcement about potential child abuse covers consensual sex between minors. He argued that the law applies to abortion clinics, and later extended that to other health professionals and teachers.

The attorney general’s office said the law required mandatory reporting because sex is inherently harmful to underage children. In Kansas, the age of consent is 16.

Prior to that ruling, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver lifted a 2004 preliminary injunction issued by Marten barring Kansas officials from enforcing Kline’s interpretation of the state law.

The appeals court ruled that the state’s interest in information about the voluntary sexual conduct of children overrides any minor’s right to privacy. The case then went back to Marten.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York abortion rights group, had challenged the constitutionality of Kline’s 2003 interpretation of the state’s sexual abuse reporting law. The group contends that forced reporting discourages adolescents from seeking counseling and medical treatment.

Bonnie Scott Jones, the attorney representing the group, called Kline’s suggestion that the ruling somehow put the reporting law in jeopardy “preposterous, really.” She said Tuesday the judge’s ruling only deals with consensual sexual activity by adolescents.

The main difference now is that the 10th Circuit will have a full evidentiary record to look at, she said.

“They had the opportunity to put on whatever evidence they wanted,” she said. “They simply had nothing showing this requirement does anything useful for children and adolescents in Kansas and to rebut the evidence that it is extremely destructive.”

In April, Marten ruled that a plain reading of the Kansas law gives health care providers discretion to determine whether there is reason to suspect a child has been injured as a result of sexual abuse.

The Center for Reproductive Rights sued in 2003 on behalf of a group of obstetricians and gynecologists, nurses, psychologists, social workers, a family practice doctor and a sex education teacher.