Olathe ? A Johnson County judge rejected a Planned Parenthood motion Tuesday seeking to stop a grand jury investigation into whether an Overland Park clinic is complying with state abortion laws.

But Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri had no plans to end its court fight.

After the judge’s ruling, Peter Brownlie, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, said a motion would be filed no later than this morning asking the Kansas Supreme Court to order a Johnson County judge to stop the panel from meeting.

The grand jury was ordered after a coalition of abortion opponents this fall collected signatures using a 1970 law that allows the public to petition for one. Kansas is one of only six states where residents can petition for a grand jury.

Planned Parenthood contends that the grand jury is essentially harassment. During the hearing Tuesday morning, Planned Parenthood attorney Robert Eye noted that Attorney General Paul Morrison, an abortion rights Democrat, had cleared the clinic of wrongdoing.

Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline also has filed criminal charges against Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri and its Comprehensive Health clinic in Overland Park.

Eye also argued that the grand jury would infringe on a woman’s right to choose and said the petition’s wording was faulty.

But Kline disagreed, saying “Nothing in the constitution or U.S. Supreme Court precedent states that the woman’s right to choose grants corporations the right to engage in illegal activities.”

Judge Kevin Moriarty rejected the Planned Parenthood arguments but agreed to move the date of the hearing back a week to Dec. 10.

“The court believes it simply does not have jurisdiction to do anything but to allow the grand jury to proceed,” he said.

Under the law, he said the grand jury had to meet within 60 days of Oct. 26, which is when the petition was filed. The petition consisted of 6,400 registered voter signatures – significantly more than the required 3,815.

The ruling came as no surprise to Brownlie.

“We didn’t expect that this judge at this court would grant the motion to throw out the grand jury,” he said. But he said he was grateful for the delay, which will give attorneys more time to make their case to the Kansas Supreme Court.

In response to a similar motion, the Kansas Supreme Court in October put a grand jury investigation into Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller on hold until it can decide whether the panel should convene.

Tiller’s defense team has argued that he has been repeatedly investigated by criminal and regulatory authorities and that subjecting him to another investigation would be harassment.

Last year, for example, abortion foes successfully petitioned Sedgwick County to create a grand jury to review the death of a Texas woman who had had an abortion at Tiller’s clinic. The grand jury issued no indictments.

In June, Morrison charged Tiller with 19 misdemeanor charges accusing him of failing to get a second opinion on some late-term abortions from an independent physician, as required by state law.

But abortion opponents contend prosecutors and regulators have not been as aggressive as they should in pursuing some allegations against Tiller, particularly allegations that he has violated the 1998 law designed to limit late-term abortions to medical emergencies. More than 2,600 late-term abortions have been performed in Kansas since the law took effect.