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We’re not in Kansas… wait a minute…

This Magazine Staff

I hope Margaret Atwood is taking notes, because I think we’re about to enter The Handmaid’s Tale, part Two—The Empire Strikes Back. Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline , is seeking access to the medical records of late-term abortion patients, with the apparent motive of prosecuting child rapists.

Okay, so he’s a pro-life Republican and, sure, one of the doctors whose files he wants to grab spent $150 grand trying to defeat him in an election. He’s a public servant in a constitutional democracy and we need to assume he’s acting in the interests of the state. Except, doesn’t the US constitution demand that the doctor NOT turn over his records, even and especially to law enforcement?

I watch NYPD Blue—isn’t the excuse that prosecuting criminals under the constitution is ‘too damn difficult’ generally frowned upon in the land of liberty?

For those without NYTimes access, here is the AP story from the Globe.

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