The Kansas Special Committee on Federal and State Affairs on Friday held its first hearing examining enforcement of a 1998 law that regulates abortions after 21 weeks' gestation, the AP/Joplin Globe reports. The committee, which could recommend changes to the law to the 2008 Legislature, has scheduled two additional days for hearings this week (AP/Joplin Globe, 8/31).

The law says that before an abortion of a fetus of 21 weeks' gestation or more, two physicians must determine that continuation of a pregnancy will lead to death or "substantial and irreversible" harm to a "major bodily function." Consulting physicians cannot have legal or financial ties to abortion providers (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 8/23).

More than 2,600 late-term abortions have been performed since the law took effect, the AP/Globe reports. Some legislators believe the state should review the diagnoses given for late-term abortions, while other lawmakers said that they do not see a problem with how the two agencies enforcing the law -- the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts -- are operating. According to the AP/Globe, the issue surfaced because of the case against physician George Tiller, who is charged with 19 misdemeanors for allegedly violating the law.

Enforcement, Reaction
The health department has no rules dictating what information physicians who perform late-term abortions should provide the state, and some people have criticized the department for allowing physicians to say that "substantial and irreversible" harm would occur without specifying the diagnosis.

Susan Kang, policy director for the health department, said that because the agency does not regulate abortion, it does not have the authority to write rules about what information regarding late-term abortions should be reported. Health department officials added that the department's role is to collect and distribute information about abortion, not to enforce the law.

Officials from the healing arts board, which regulates physicians in the state, said the board responds to complaints and evaluates care in individual cases but does not investigate every late-term abortion performed, in part because it does not have the resources to do so. Larry Buening, executive director of the board, said the board from July 1, 2005, to June 30, 2006, received almost 2,600 complaints of late-term abortions. "We don't go and look at every appendectomy to see that every appendectomy in fact complied with the standard of care," Buening said.

Julie Burkhart, a lobbyist for ProKanDo, said abortion opponents in the Legislature are attempting to single out abortion providers with the aim of reducing access to their services. Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, said the committee hearings last week "made it painfully obvious just how far" the health department and healing arts board "have gone to avoid the intent and enforcement of Kansas' late-term abortion law" (AP/Joplin Globe, 8/31).