One Last Chance to Defeat UVVA!

HB 2062, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA), has been approved the by the Kansas House of Representatives. It is now on its way to Governor Kathleen Sebelius' desk for final approval. But, you have one last chance to help defeat this anti-woman bill.

I strongly urge you to contact Governor Sebelius and encourage her to VETO HB 2062. She can reached at her office, 785-296-3232 or you can call toll free at 1-877-579-6757. You can also send her a message by clicking here.

HB 2062 is a bad bill for many reasons. Here are a few things you can tell the Governor:

The Kansas legislature has a responsibility to punish those whose violent actions interfere with a woman's fundamental right to have a child. Existing Motherhood Protection laws (K.S.A. 21-3440 and K.S.A. 21-3441) recognize the particularly heinous nature of crimes against pregnant women by providing separate criminal charges for those who interrupt a pregnancy in the commission of a crime. HB 2062 actually strikes Motherhood Protection Laws.

HB 2062 will have unintended consequences for pregnant women. In South Carolina, a similar law has been used approximately 3 times against actual perpetrators since its inception in 1984. It has been used over 70 times, however, to prosecute women who suffered stillbirths. A similar trend has appeared in other states as well, even though the laws specifically exempt pregnant women just as HB 2062 does.

HB 2062 does nothing to address violence against pregnant women, but functions solely by defining fetuses as people in the Kansas criminal code. Motherhood Protection Laws, on the other hand, keep the focus where it should be - on the victims of these horrible crimes.
UVVA is intentionally vague and overbroad. Motherhood Protection Laws have a specific goal: to punish those who intentionally harm pregnant women. By repealing these acts, it would ignore the harm that is directly done to a pregnant woman and her right to have a baby.

HB 2062 is controversial because for the first time ever, it would define fetuses, from the moment of conception, as full people in Kansas law.

Motherhood Protection Laws address violence against pregnant women without dragging abortion into the debate.

Please ask the Governor to VETO HB 2062. Ask her NOT to repeal existing Motherhood Protection Laws K.S.A. 21-3440 and K.S.A. 21-3441.

Commentary from the peanut gallery...

The right wing, basking in the ecstasy of a Supreme Court boondoggle, had a few choice nuggets for the world. This is just a sampling of the fortune cookie wisdom coming from the anti-choicers:

Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue: "The court has now said it's OK to ban procedures. We can do more than just put hurdles in front of women seeking abortions - we can put roadblocks in front of them." (Associated Press, 4/19/07)

Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America: "It is just a matter of time before the infamous Roe v. Wade...will also be struck down by the court." (USA Today, 4/19/07)

Leslee Unruh, an anti-choice activist in South Dakota who helped lead the abortion ban in that state: "I'm ecstatic.... It's like someone gave me $1 million and told me, 'Leslee, go shopping.' That's how I feel." (Los Angeles Times, 4/19/07)

Senator Sam Brownback, Republican Presidential Candidate: "I applaud the Court for finding that the Constitution 'expresses respect for the dignity of human life,' and hope that this decision signals the Court's willingness to revisit and reverse Roe v. Wade." (Press release, Brownback for President 4/18/07)

Urgent Legislative Alert!

House Bill 2062, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA), is coming up for a final vote very soon. This is a piece of anti-woman legislation will even effect women who want to have their babies.

HB 2062 will have unintended consequences for pregnant women. In South Carolina, a similar law has been used only three times against an actual perpetrator since its inception in 1984. It has been used over 70 times, however, to prosecute women who were carrying their babies to term. A similar trend has appeared in other states as well, even though the laws specifically exempt pregnant women just as HB 2062 does.

HB 2062 does nothing to address violence against pregnant women, but functions
solely by defining fetuses as people under the Kansas criminal code. Homicide is the number one cause of death amongst pregnant women. Until violence against women is addressed; pregnant women will continue to be murdered.

HB 2062 is controversial because, for the first time ever, it would define fetuses, from the moment of conception, as full people under Kansas law.

Please help us stop this bill today. Please contact the representatives below and ask them to vote "NO" on HB 2062.

Robert Grant
620-457-8496
grant@house.state.ks.us

Shirley Palmer
620-223-4105
palmers@house.state.ks.us

Dennis McKinney
620-723-2129
mckinney@house.state.ks.us

Joshua Svaty
785-472-7794
svaty@house.state.ks.us

Tom Burroughs
913-375-1956
burroughs@house.state.ks.us

Stan Frownfelter
913-262-9659
frownfelter@house.state.ks.us

Steve Lukert
785-284-3623
lukert@house.state.ks.us

Eber Phelps
785-625-5947
phelps@house.state.ks.us

Vincent Wetta
620-326-5205
wetta@house.state.ks.us

Nile Dillmore
316-264-2988
dillmore@house.state.ks.us

Oletha Faust-Goudeau
316-652-9067
faustgoudeau@house.state.ks.us

Raj Goyle
316-681-8133
goyle@house.state.ks.us

Ann Mah
785-266-9434
mah@house.state.ks.us

Melody McCray-Miller
316-744-7516
Millerm@house.state.ks.us

Terry McLachlan
316-619-7879
mclachlan@house.state.ks.us

Cindy Neighbor
913-268-9061
neighbor@house.state.ks.us

Michael Peterson
913-371-7354
peterson@house.state.ks.us

Tom Sawyer
316-265-7076
sawyer@house.state.ks.us

Mark Treaster
620-459-6363
treaster@house.state.ks.us

Ed Trimmer
620-221-7146
trimmer@house.state.ks.us

Jim Ward
316-683-3609
ward@house.state.ks.us

The Capitol Bully

This article is from The Pitch, enjoy!
Capitol Bully
As a state senator, Jim Barone has been accused of accosting women and using his power for his sons' gain.
By Justin Kendall
Published: March 29, 2007

A 22-year-old Kansas Senate intern had all the guys' eyes during the 2005 legislative session. The Washburn University senior was an intern for Senate President Stephen Morris. She was friendly and confident, energetic and gregarious; her smile was sweet and her eyes piercing.
It started as a bet on a basketball game. Kansas state Sen. Jim Barone bet her dinner that his alma mater, Pittsburg State University, would whip Washburn. But Washburn won the January 26 game, 76-61. Barone wanted to pay up.

Barone — a chubby, graying and balding anti-choice, pro-gun Democrat from Frontenac, Kansas — wasn't just being friendly. The then-63-year-old was in his eighth year as a lawmaker. In that time, he'd earned a reputation for latching on to pretty young women at the Capitol. Barone asked for the intern's cell phone number, and she gave it to him. She didn't think a senator 41 years her senior would call her. But Barone called — often.

He'd call and leave messages for her saying she could call him at any hour; he'd be up all night. Barone called one evening in the waning days of the session. He wanted to get together with the intern. She had gone out for drinks with co-workers at Terry's Bar and Grill in Topeka, a hot spot for lawmakers and statehouse staff during the session. She laughed when she saw Barone's name on her caller ID, but she was "a little freaked out," says a senior Senate staffer who was with the woman that evening.

"She was laughing, but she thought it was going too far," according to the senior Senate staffer.
Barone told her he was going to stop by Terry's because he had a present for her, homemade wine from southeast Kansas. She didn't want to meet him. But, finally, she gave in.
"We have to be very discreet," Barone told her.

Discreet meant that the married Barone would give the wine to the intern outside the bar.
The young woman told her co-workers to stay inside the bar while she fetched the wine. Barone dropped off the bottle, and the woman returned to the bar. But the young woman's co-workers had seen enough.

"When he starts calling an intern and making unwanted advances," a co-worker who was at Terry's that night tells the Pitch, "that's when it crosses the line."

The 22-year-old intern wasn't the first allegation of harassment against Barone. The Pitch has learned of at least two other instances, dating back to Gov. Bill Graves' administration.
But his problems don't end there. The senator has used his position to get one of his sons out of legal trouble and to protect another son's lobbying interests. Barone's harassment of women and his abuse of power have led members of his own party to remove him from prominent positions in the Senate and to publicly question his ability to serve. The gift exchange was the last straw for a senior Senate staffer, who reported Barone to Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley later that session.

"I have never gone to the minority leader to do anything like that before, but because I was familiar with Barone's reputation, and because I felt this particular intern was vulnerable and naïve, I thought, I'm going to put a stop to this," the staff member tells the Pitch. "The bottom line is, what was he doing asking an intern for her phone number? What was he doing calling and leaving messages for her? That right there is incredibly questionable behavior."
Hensley confirmed the story with the Pitch. He says he confronted Barone about the phone calls to the intern.

"I visited with him about it, and he denied it," Hensley tells the Pitch. "But I also had a conversation with the young woman, who was pretty emphatic that that's what happened."
The intern also played voice mail messages for Hensley. However, the woman never filed a formal complaint against Barone, Hensley says.

Hensley's office had heard complaints about Barone before.

About seven years ago, a couple of bureaucrats reported Barone to Hensley for allegedly making repeated phone calls to a female employee of the state's human resources department. The employee was on the verge of filing a sexual harassment suit but agreed not to if the alleged phone calls stopped. Hensley told the bureaucrats to call him if there were other complaints. He never heard from them again.

Hensley can't remember whether he spoke with Barone about the earlier alleged phone calls.

"I have to say that I don't recall that I did," Hensley tells the Pitch. "I may have, but I don't recall that I did. My memory is real fuzzy on that deal."

No official complaints were filed in these instances.

Another woman alleges that Barone tried to swap his support for favors. The woman was a citizen working to lobby the Kansas Legislature, and she says Barone made advances toward her after taking an interest in her cause.

Things went bad from the start. When the woman introduced herself to Barone outside a committee meeting, she says Barone ogled her, looking her up and down, and then said, in a deep voice, "Really?"

"I totally did not expect that at all," the woman tells the Pitch. "I've dealt with many state officials, and they don't do that."

In future meetings, she says, Barone made her feel more uneasy. When the senator would shake her hand in private, he'd place his left hand on top of hers and hold it there. She thought it was strange, but she "didn't want to ruffle any feathers," she says. "He was the only person willing to help me."

One night while discussing the issue, Barone allegedly told her that she was "a very attractive woman."

The woman told Barone that she wanted to stick to the issue.

Barone made no further advances that night, she says, but then he started calling her "baby" in conversations. "I didn't encourage him," the woman tells the Pitch. "I let it go because I really wanted him to help me." Finally, the woman alleges, Barone suggested that they get together.
"I really appreciate what you're doing for us," the woman says she told Barone, "but I'm not interested in any fling or affair. I'm a married woman."

She says he was undeterred. "What two people do behind closed doors is their business," he allegedly told her.

"Look, I'm not going to have a fling with you, period," the woman claims she told him.

Then, she says, Barone lost his cool, telling her: "You owe me."

"I don't owe you anything," the woman says she told Barone. "Aren't you a state senator?"

"You're not even my constituent," Barone allegedly told her. Then, the woman says, Barone became defensive and told her that she had come on to him.
Barone kept calling after she turned him down — for six years, the woman says.

The woman stopped returning his calls.

This year, Hensley has politically neutered Barone, removing the Senator from three important committee positions. In January of this year, Hensley stripped Barone of his position as ranking Democrat on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which controls the state's budget. In February, Hensley declined to reappoint Barone to the Legislative Building Committee. In March, Hensley pulled Barone from the Kansas Bioscience Authority.

"That's unheard of," says a former co-worker of the intern, who asked not to be named. "What that tells me is the Democrat leadership in the Senate has had enough of him and is tired of dealing with the complaints about him and has basically clipped his wings."

Asked about why he removed Barone from key committees, Hensley read a statement to the Pitch by phone last week in which he said Barone had become a "liability to me and to our caucus" because of his behavior. "My decision to remove him from that position was an accumulation of numerous complaints heard through the years from fellow legislators, lobbyists, state agency heads and others concerned with Sen. Barone's behavior. He has had the consistent pattern of using his position as state senator to mistreat and abuse people and advance his own personal agenda," Hensley said. "Harry Truman had a sign on his desk saying 'The buck stops here.' That same adage applies to decisions I make as the senate minority leader. If [former U.S. Speaker of the House] Denny Hastert had followed this adage when a member of his caucus became a liability, he wouldn't today be sitting on the back row of the U.S. House."
In 2004, Jim Barone narrowly won re-election, edging his opponent by 317 votes. Barone told The Pittsburg Morning Sun that his victory proved that "millionaires can't buy an election, negative campaigning doesn't pay off and integrity and public service does count."
But integrity has been lacking in Barone's behavior on the Senate floor. He isn't above showing up his political opponents — or misleading lobbyists about which way his vote will go.
Barone worked for 30 years in St. Louis for Southwestern Bell. He had been an executive with the telephone company, working in "government relations, operational controls and fiscal management," according to the Morning Sun.

After retiring, Barone returned home to southeast Kansas. When Barone and his wife, Donita, settled in Frontenac, it was a homecoming of sorts. He had grown up in Crawford County in a small coal-mining township called Camp 50, according to the Morning Sun. He graduated from Pittsburg State University in 1962.

His career with the phone company led him away from home. But his political career led him back to Frontenac. In 1996, Barone won his first Senate race.

"When he started out about 10 years ago, he came on like he was going to do the job for the people," says a statehouse source who asked not to be named. "To most people ... his five favorite words are 'What's in it for me?'"

Barone is a restless soul on the Senate floor. He bites his fingernails. He swings and reclines in his chair. He frequently disappears into the Senate break room, out of sight from the Senate gallery. Barone refers to himself in the third person: "this senator."

Last year, Barone helped torpedo a move to revive legislation sought by the regents. Barone was reportedly on the floor yelling at members of his own party not to vote for the bill. The move failed. Afterward, Barone shouted to a state official. When he had the guy's attention, he started rubbing his index and middle fingers together as if he were sharpening a blade. He then made a throat-slitting motion with his fingers and started brushing down his coat as if wiping off the blood spurting from his neck.

"You should have talked to us about this," Barone yelled.

A year earlier, Barone crossed Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on a bill targeting abortion clinics. An amendment was offered to regulate all outpatient medical clinics equally. Barone gave a lobbyist his word that he'd vote for the amendment. When it came time for the vote, Barone voted against it. The amendment failed. When the vote failed, Barone glared at the governor's staff, licked his index finger, and waved it in the air as if to chalk up a victory.
Sebelius vetoed the bill.

Chris Barone, Jim Barone' s middle child, called KU Medical Center on the morning of February 12, 2004, demanding to see Dr. Paul Wetzel. Secretary Jennifer Howse told him that the doctor was booked until March 25. Chris Barone, who was 38 years old then, wasn't satisfied. He demanded the doctor's pager number. When Howse refused to give him the number, he berated her and called her a "bitch," according to court documents.

Howse hung up on him. When Chris Barone called back, Howse transferred him to nurse Carolyn Paul. Chris Barone demanded to speak with Howse's supervisor. Paul told him the supervisor was out of the office. He demanded the supervisor's phone number. Paul refused to give it to him. Chris Barone then threatened to come to the hospital and "raise hell." Before hanging up, he told Paul, "Then fuck you to you, cunt."

The women called the University of Kansas Police Department. Officer Travis Marshall responded at 10 a.m.

"Both receptionists expressed concern for their safety due to these statements," Marshall wrote in his report.

Howse wanted to press charges.

Chris Barone called again. Marshall picked up the phone and asked Chris Barone to come to the hospital and make a statement. He refused. He said he didn't believe Marshall was really a police officer and hung up on him. But Chris Barone called one last time. He asked Howse if she had called the police. She told him she had. Finally, he agreed to come to the hospital.
The officer met Chris Barone in the lobby, where he was arrested for telephone harassment. He was released and told not to return unless he was in need of medical assistance.

Jim Barone had some leverage that could be used to get his son out of trouble: He was the ranking Democrat on the Senate budget committee, which controls KU Medical Center's budget.
A day after the arrest, Melanie Coffman, an official from KU Med Center Executive Dean Barbara Atkinson's office, told Howse that Sen. Barone had called Atkinson and said "that he wanted the charges dropped against his son," court documents say.
Coffman, another Med Center official and an attorney for the hospital asked Howse three more times over the next four weeks to drop the charges. Court documents say Howse was offered apologies and flowers in exchange for dropping the charges. Each time, she refused.
Meanwhile, Chris Barone filed a complaint with the hospital against Howse. In his complaint, which Coffman took by phone, he claimed that Howse ignored his request for medical treatment.

"I am coughing up pure white foam. I cannot eat, and KU is denying me care," he told Coffman. He added that he wasn't "a threat to anyone," and he apologized in the complaint "for whatever I said to the lady who filed charges against me."

In his complaint, Chris Barone also said, "My father is a senator, and my brother is a lawyer."
Howse filed a follow-up police report on February 16. She claimed that Coffman had approached her about dropping the charges. "When Melanie told me she was a rep of Dr. Atkinson and that Sen. Barone had called — I felt some pressure, but I told my side of the story and I told the truth," Howse wrote in the report.

Coffman asked if Howse would accept an apology from Chris Barone and drop the charges, according to the police report. "I said, 'I don't care who his daddy is, I am not going to drop the charges.'"

On March 9, 2004, Chris Barone was scheduled to appear in municipal court on his telephone harassment charge.

Howse was there, but Chris Barone didn't show. A judge issued a warrant for his arrest.
Hours after the hearing, Howse was called to the human resources department to talk to Chris McGoldrick, the senior business administrator for internal medicine, and Saunny Jordan, human resources manager for internal medicine. They told her she was fired. (Jordan declined to comment; McGoldrick no longer works at the medical center.)

In court documents, Howse claimed that McGoldrick said, "Sometimes people get fired for political reasons." She also claimed that McGoldrick told her four or five times, "Surely you knew this was going to happen." Howse kept telling him, "No."

Howse called Officer Marshall on March 11 to complain that she had been fired for pursuing the charges against Chris Barone. Howse filed a police report with Marshall.

On April 30, 2004, Chris Barone pleaded guilty to charges of telephone harassment. He was fined $200.

Howse filed a lawsuit on July 22, 2004, against KU Medical Center, Atkinson and another hospital official. She claimed in the suit that hospital administrators were more interested in "pleasing a Kansas Senator who is responsible for funding the Medical Center" than the "best interests" of the hospital.

The case settled out of court on November 3, 2005. Terms of the settlement are confidential.
"The matter was resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties," says Carrie Mulholland Brous, Howse's attorney.

Chris Barone has had other legal problems. In June 2003, Chris Barone was arrested in Crawford County for possession of a controlled substance or drug paraphernalia. He still owes Jackson County, Missouri, $8,821.43 in unpaid property taxes on 4547 Fairmount Avenue, which he purchased from his father in 2003. Jim Barone bought the house in 2001 and deeded it to Chris in 2003.

Jim Barone doesn't want to talk about his family. He refuses to talk about his sons — Chris and Kevin — or answer questions about using his influence to try to get Chris Barone out of legal jams.

"You can do all of the research you want on me," Jim Barone tells the Pitch. "It'll be hard to find me talking about my family."

During the 2006 session, Senate leaders were scrambling to get a 21-vote majority to pass an expanded casino gaming bill. Lawmakers saw gambling as a way to pay for an increase in school funding. But Jim Barone, a self-professed supporter of gambling expansion in Kansas, was balking at the bill. His reason: a provision in the bill could prevent his son Kevin from keeping a job.

In early March of last year, Barone met with officials of the Sumner County Economic Development Commission in south central Kansas, according to the Morning Sun. He told the county's economic development team that they had a shot of being included in the gaming bill.
About the same time as the meeting, the county hired Jim Barone's son Kevin to lobby on behalf of the county's gaming interests. Barone's fee for lobbying the Legislature was $1,250 a month plus expenses, according to The Caldwell Messenger.

But Sumner, in farm country south of Wichita, had never been discussed as a potential casino site.

Hensley, the minority leader, blasted Barone in an editorial in The Wellington Daily News, saying Barone had misled the people of Sumner County. "I find it disturbingly coincidental that Sen. Barone's son, Kevin Barone, was then hired to lobby for Sumner County," Hensley wrote. "In my opinion, no legislator should place their personal interests above the interests of every other Kansan."

Barone was unable to deliver gambling to Sumner County. He would eventually cast his vote in favor of expanded gambling, though the measure failed.

Lawmakers added a conflict-of-interest clause to the bill, barring legislators and their family members from working in the gaming industry until they'd been out of office for five years.
"It wasn't an accident that we wrote a bill to take care of what we saw as very egregious overstepping of bounds," an architect of the bill, who asked that his name not be used, tells the Pitch.

A former legislator adds, "It just smells bad when there's an opportunity for a legislator's family member to gain from a piece of legislation that the legislature is voting on. I think anybody can see that."

Barone complained to reporters that the conflict-of-interest provision was "far overreaching." His opposition came at the expense of his home county. Crawford County voters had passed a referendum in 2005 in support of expanding casino gambling in the county.

Sumner County has retained Kevin Barone to lobby lawmakers again in 2007.

The hallway outside room No. 181-E is empty except for a security guard sitting next to the entrance to the Capitol building. Sen. Jim Barone has two minutes before he has to be at the Senate Ways and Means Committee. A Pitch reporter introduces himself to Barone as he exits his office. Barone glares at the reporter, leaving the reporter's outstretched hand hanging in the air. "Come here," Barone grumbles, stomping back into his office.

Barone storms past three secretaries. He goes no farther than the doorway. Barone's office is decorated with Pittsburg State University memorabilia — a red-and-gold PSU rug sits in the doorway to his office. A framed portrait of PSU's mascot, a gorilla, hangs on the wall next to his desk. A gold-colored statue of a gorilla sits next to a gold donkey on his desk. He leaves the door half-open. The lights are off, and the room has the gray haze of a midday afternoon.

"Do you have that statement?" Barone asks one of the secretaries.

"Yeah, I just printed it," she says.

"Let's see it," Barone says. He grabs the statement, places it on a table near the door and signs it.

The statement was prepared before Barone knew what the reporter wanted to discuss. When asked about the incident with the intern, he says, "You know, I ain't got nothing to say about that." He looks at the ceiling of his office in disbelief. "That wasn't true," he adds somberly. "Have you talked to the lady?"

Barone storms off to his committee meeting.

The statement isn't on Senate letterhead. "From the Office of Jim Barone" reads the top of the white page.

"I have always made it a practice not to respond to rumors, gossip, or innuendos and I do not intend to change my position now," it reads. "It has always been my long standing personal belief that my personal family life and the personal lives of my family members are just that, personal and private family matters.
"My job as a citizen legislator is to represent the folks back home to the best of my ability and my conservative democratic district doesn't always think exactly like my state party. I am proud to be a lifelong Kansas democrat but my number one concern is taking care of business for the people who elected me.
"The folks in my district are like family and family comes first."

A week later, Barone invites a Pitch reporter back to his office to discuss his work as a senator. Barone has only a few minutes before he has to leave to take pictures with legislative pages. He promises a Pitch reporter that he'll finish the interview later if he has to skip out.

Barone spends much of the interview dodging questions. Asked about his demotion on Ways and Means and the Buildings Committee, Barone pauses and says, "Ask the senator who did that." Then he dismisses the question by saying, "That laundry has been washed. I don't see any value in re-plowing that field." Barone adds, "I'm an optimist. You can't unfry an egg. That egg's been fried."

Barone says the demotions haven't hurt his standing in the Democratic Party. "My sense is I still enjoy the same amount of respect that I've always had," Barone says.

Barone runs through his legislative agenda. He clicks his pen. He bites his fingernails. He jingles the change in his pocket. He unbuckles the watch that has been jangling on his wrist. Barone reclines in his chair with his hands on his head, as if he were doing situps.

Barone opens a manila folder on his desk and runs through the Senate bills he's working on. He wants to set up a riverfront authority for Fort Scott and Bourbon counties. The bill made it out of committee and was headed for floor debate. He's pushing a scholarship fund for students who graduate from Frontenac High School; every student would get a scholarship, $800 maximum, toward any postsecondary education. He also wants to create sinkhole insurance.

From the shelf behind him, Barone grabs a copy of Newt Gingrich's Winning the Future. He reads the inscription inside: "To Senator Jim Barone, your friend Newt Gingrich. Good luck on your price posting bill."

The former Republican speaker of the house visited Topeka last year.

"He heard about my bill," Barone says proudly. He's referring to a bill he introduced that would require hospitals to post the costs of 25 common outpatient procedures, such as chest X-rays, mammograms and blood tests. "He very aggressively supports it."

As Barone departs for his photo-op, he says he will discuss only some aspects of the gambling bill. "Remember the ground rules," Barone warns. "I'm not going to talk about [family], but I'll talk about my work up here.

"The bill didn't make it. I supported the bill, voted for it, but it didn't make it. Check the record."
Ten minutes later, returning from the photo-op, Barone tells his secretary to fetch a transcript of the testimony he delivered before the Federal and State Affairs Committee last year.
Asked about corruption in gambling, Barone says, "Is there corruption in gaming? What evidence do you have of that? There's a history of corruption in every facet of our lives: state government, highway contracting, schools, newspapers — fair?"

The secretary returns with his testimony. "I can exert very little financial control in my own household," Barone's testimony, dated March 10, 2006, reads. "Most of you know that Donita runs it, and I guarantee you that very few, if any of us, can exert strict financial control over adult family members not residing in our households. How are we to know what their business activities are?"

Satisfied with his answer, Barone changes the subject and calls himself "an old man ... on Social Security." A Pitch reporter says Barone isn't hurting for money with his legislative salary.
"You a gambling man?" Barone asks. "I bet you a Coke, a lunch, a steak that you make more than I do up here."

The reporter declines to take the bet.

Barone digs in his bag.

"I just happen to have something here, and I'll gladly give it to you to do away with any misconceptions of what we make," Barone says. He takes out his W2 tax form, passes it to the reporter and reads the numbers with satisfaction: $15,084.21.

"Publish it," he says.

Sandra Day O'Connor Retires; What's Next for Women's Rights and the Supreme Court

Friday, July 1, 2005
Bush gets first chance for Court nominee
By DEB RIECHMANN

ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

President Bush arrives to make a statement about the retirement of Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor in the Rose Garden of the White House Friday, July 1, 2005 in Washington. O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court and a swing vote on abortion as well as other contentious issues, announced her retirement Friday. A bruising Senate confirmation struggle loomed as President Bush selects a successor.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Friday he will pick a successor to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in a timely manner so her vacancy can be filled by the time the Supreme Court resumes work in the fall.

The White House said he would not decide before returning from Europe July 8.
Bush will consult with Republican and Democratic senators about his selection, and will talk with them on the flight to Denmark next Tuesday and during his stay Wednesday through Friday at the summit of leading industrialized nations, in Gleneagles, Scotland, said presidential spokesman Scott McClellan.

The White House got the first indication of the retirement on Thursday when the Supreme Court's head marshal, Pamela Talkin, called White House counsel Harriet Miers to make arrangements to deliver a sealed envelope the next morning. Miers informed Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who were having lunch together, that a letter was coming. Talkin informed the White House around 9 a.m. Friday that the letter was from O'Conner , and Miers alerted Bush .

The president spoke with O'Connor before he appeared in the Rose Garden to express appreciation for her 24 years of service.

"For an old ranching girl, you turned out pretty good," he told O'Connor, who grew up on an Arizona ranch. But it was an emotional call, McClellan said. He quoted Bush as telling her, "You're one of the great Americans" and "I wish I were there to hug you."

Lactivists Fight for Women's Rights

Lactivists' nursing anger

Walters' remark on breast-feeding

sparks moms' protest at ABC

By Amy Harmon New York Times News Service

Published June 7, 2005

The calls for a "nurse-in" began on the Internet mere moments after Barbara Walters uttered a negative remark about public breast-feeding on her ABC talk show, "The View."

Inspired by similar events organized by a growing group of unlikely activists nationwide, the protest brought about 200 women to ABC's headquarters Monday. "Shame on View," their signs read. "Babies Were Born to be Breastfed."

Walters, who had said a few weeks ago on the show that the sight of a woman breast-feeding on an airplane next to her had made her uncomfortable, said through a spokesman that "it was a particular circumstance, and we are surprised that it warrants a protest."

But the rally at ABC is only the most visible example of a recent wave of "lactivism." Prodded by mothers tired of being asked to adjourn to a bathroom while nursing in a public space, six states have recently passed laws giving a woman the right to breast-feed wherever she "is otherwise authorized to be."

An Ohio bill saying a woman is "entitled to breast-feed her baby in any place of public accommodation" passed the Legislature last month over the objection of one representative who wanted to exempt businesses from liability for accidents caused by "spillage."

"I really don't know any women who `spill,"' said Lisa Wilson, mother of a 4-month-old in Fairview Park, Ohio, who helped organize a nurse-in at a local deli to support the bill.

Trying for federal law

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) hosted a nurse-in on the Capitol's Cannon Terrace last month as she reintroduced federal legislation to amend the Civil Rights Act to protect women from employment discrimination for using a breast pump or feeding babies during breaks.

Nursing mothers are pressuring businesses too. Burger King has declared they are welcome. Starbucks, the target of a letter-writing campaign that asked "What's more natural than coffee and milk?" also has.

The flurry of moves come as the number of American women who choose to breast-feed has climbed from about half in 1990 to close to 70 percent.

"We're all told that breast-feeding is the best, healthiest thing you can do for your child," said Lorig Charkoudian, 32, who started the Web site www.nurseatstarbucks.com after being asked to use the bathroom to nurse at her local Starbucks. "And then we're made to feel ashamed to do it without being locked in our homes."

Legislators, business owners and family members are debating how to reconcile the health benefits of nursing with the prevailing cultural squeamishness toward nursing in public.

"It's nothing against breast-feeding. It's about exposing yourself for people who don't want to see it," said Scotty Stroup, the owner of a restaurant in Round Rock, Texas, where a nursing mother was refused service last fall.

But the new generation of lactivists compare discomfort with seeing breast-feeding in public to discomfort with seeing interracial couples or gays holding hands.

"It's like any other prejudice. They have to get used to it," said Rebecca Odes, who attended the ABC protest. "People don't want to see it because they feel uncomfortable with it, and they feel uncomfortable with it because they don't see it."

Whether to breast-feed in public, many nursing mothers say, is not simply a matter of being respectful. They cite research by the Food and Drug Administration showing that the degree of embarrassment a mother feels about breast-feeding plays a bigger role in determining whether she is likely to breast-feed than household income, length of maternity leave or employment status.

Medical advice on practice

The American Academy of Pediatrics urges that women feed their babies only breast milk for the first six months and continue breast-feeding for at least an additional six months. But while more women are breast-feeding for the first few weeks, fewer than one-third are still nursing after six months.

"To many mothers, breast-feeding runs up against sexual attitudes toward the breast," said Dr. Lawrence Gartner, who leads the academy's research on breast-feeding. "That reduces the prevalence of breast-feeding, which is a bad situation because duration of breast-feeding is an important factor in children's health."

Even mothers who are committed to nursing say they are shaken when confronted.

"People make you feel like you're doing something dirty almost," said Rene Harrell, 26, of Chantilly, Va., who recently was asked to leave a Delta Airlines lounge in Atlanta as she nursed her 8-month-old son, Elijah.

New Women's E-News Article Highlights ProKanDo

Hands Off My Medical History

By Ann Farmer, Women's eNewsPosted on June 6, 2005

http://www.alternet.org/story/22157/

A woman seeking reproductive health care usually starts by filling out a questionnaire detailing her complete medical history including whether she is sexually active, past illnesses, number of pregnancies, number of live births, contraceptive use, marital status, gender of her sexual partner, occupation, address and more.

Yet, as the legal battles over reproductive rights continue to increase in number and intensity, more and more women have become reluctant to be open and frank.

And after last week--when an Indiana judge on May 30 denied the request of Planned Parenthood of Indiana to stop the state's Attorney General Steve Carter from accessing the medical records of its young clients--it may be even harder for doctors to gather an accurate health history from women and teens.

Planned Parenthood of Indiana filed its lawsuit in March after the state attorney general's office implemented the state Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which apparently overrides federal health privacy laws, to investigate whether more than forty Planned Parenthood affiliates are properly reporting cases of rape and molestation involving girls under 14. The lawsuit also asked the Superior Court judge to require the return of records already taken by the attorney general's office. Following the judge's denial, Planned Parenthood requested a stay in the case and has vowed to appeal to the Indiana Court of Appeals if necessary.

"I think it's very disturbing and frightening," says Dorothy Greene, a New York City writer who had an abortion years ago but chooses not to share that information with her doctors. "I don't know anymore where these records end up or who sees them. I don't want to feel that the personal private records of mine will be open to scrutiny by someone who has no business looking at them except for their personal ideological reasons."

Indiana is the second state in a matter of months in which prosecutors have sought full access to medical records held by reproductive health clinics.

Kansas Subpoenas

In February, Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline served subpoenas on two Kansas reproductive health clinics seeking access to the medical records of at least 90 women who had used its abortion services.

Attorneys for the two clinics--Comprehensive Health, a Planned Parenthood clinic located in the suburbs of Kansas City and Women's Health Care Services, located in Wichita--filed an appeal on March 16 with the Kansas Supreme Court to block Kline's access to the unedited files, which include the patient's name, medical history, psychological profile and sexual history.

"We made a commitment to our patients that their records are confidential and private," says Peter Brownlie, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, which, along with Women's Health Care Services, has not released any files to date.

The decision on whether to uphold Kline's injunction is pending review by the seven-member Kansas Supreme Court and may not be issued for months.

The Kansas women whose medical records were subpoenaed have expressed outrage at what they see as an incursion into their privacy, says Julie Burkhardt, executive director of ProKanDo, a pro-choice political action committee that she founded along with Dr. George Tiller, medical director of Women's Health Care Services. "They're very concerned that a non-medical official was going to be searching through their medical records."

Legal Violations

Both clinics cited in the subpoenas offer legal second-trimester abortion services.
Kline says that he's investigating possible violations of a state law limiting late-term abortions and another that requires the mandatory reporting of suspected child rape.

"This is a fishing expedition," retorts Brownlie of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, noting that Kline is poised to run next year for either a second term as attorney general or for the governorship. "We fully comply with Kansas' laws."

Whitney Watson, spokesperson for Kansas Attorney General Kline, refused to discuss any potential evidence, saying only that the District Court judge who signed the subpoenas had determined that probable cause existed.
Critics say Kline is pushing an anti-choice agenda.

"He has been very clear throughout his political career that he is out to get abortion providers," Burkhardt says. "When this inquisition broke back in February, he repeatedly said that this is about protecting children from child rapists."

But she says that Kline has subpoenaed the records of all women--not just the very young--who had abortions at or after 22 weeks of pregnancy during 2003.
She says if Kline's motive was to uncover possible instances of child sexual abuse he'd also be looking at the records of family physicians, psychologists, social workers and others.

When asked about that, Watson responded, "You don't know that we're not."
A spokesperson for the Indiana attorney general's office also says that it is pursuing its legal obligation to investigate potential wrongdoing involving minors.

Signs of Intimidation

Although Planned Parenthood declines to say exactly how much activity it lost at the Kansas clinic, it contends that the empty places in its appointment books indicate that Kline's actions were intimidating women who would normally be seeking its health care services.

"We are concerned about the chilling effect," says Brownlie. "We had phone calls from patients wanting to know if their privacy was at risk."

Concealing their medical histories can put patients' health at risk, says Katharine O'Connell, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University.

For instance, says O'Connell, many teens today take the acne drug Accutane. If they do not reveal to their doctors that they are pregnant, they might continue taking the drug, which can cause serious birth defects.

"Doctors trust that patients will be open to them," says O'Connell.

Health workers, however, say patients often feel there is a bigger risk in sharing their information.

"What people leave out are the things they're ashamed of or perceive others to have judgment about," says Leslie Rottenberg, senior director of social services for Planned Parenthood of New York. She cited sexually transmitted diseases, drugs and abortions as likely omissions.

Rottenberg adds women most often omit their abortion history, worrying that somehow their employers might find out and that minors, in particular, are concerned about insurance information reaching their parents.

"There is definite concern about where that information goes and who will know and who will have access to it," she says.

Discouraging Headlines

Carole Joffe, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis, believes even more women would conceal their abortion history if they knew what was going on in Kansas and Indiana.

"When young women in society see headline after headline that says the attorney general is seeking abortion records, it just adds to the sense that abortion is stigmatized. And that your records may be subpoenaed."

This stigma surrounding abortion, she says, compels many women to reach for their pocketbook rather than use their health insurance to cover the procedure.
"They're afraid to let their insurance company know or have it become part of their permanent medical record."

Both state cases follow a failed attempt in 2003 by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to gain access to women's medical records across the nation as part of litigation to defend an anti-choice law passed by Congress which would have banned abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy.

In addition, in 2002, after the discovery of a dismembered infant in Iowa, local law enforcement officials subpoenaed approximately 1,000 positive pregnancy test results from a Planned Parenthood affiliate there in attempts to locate the mother. Months later they withdrew the subpoena after lawyers for Planned Parenthood of Iowa successfully appealed to the state Supreme Court to block and review the lower court order. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller cited a deficit of time and resources as his reason for backing off from that intrusion into women's privacy.

Ann Farmer is a freelance writer who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Cynthia Cooper contributed reporting to this article.

© 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/22157/

LA Times Article Sheds Light On Late-Term Abortion

A Late Decision, a Lasting Anguish

A Kansas doctor is under investigation for
performing abortions others won't. His clients say outsiders
can't grasp their pain or gratitude.

By Stephanie Simon Times Staff Writer

May 31, 2005 WICHITA, Kan. —

The moment is burned forever in her mind: The small exam room, her husband's ashen face, her sobs as the doctor guided a needle into her womb to kill her son.

It's been 4 1/2 years, and still Marie Becker can feel Daniel kicking inside her, kicking and kicking as she choked back hysteria — kicking until the drug stopped his heart and she felt only stillness.

She prayed Daniel would forgive her.

She prayed for forgiveness from God as well. Becker had been taught that abortion was a sin; she wanted so to believe it might also be a blessing. In her seventh month of pregnancy she had learned Daniel had a fatal genetic disorder and his life would be brief and brutal. She wanted to spare him that.

"For the love of God, the last thing I wanted to do was to murder my own child," she said recently. "This was something we did out of love and respect for him."

Becker, who asked to be identified by her middle and maiden names, tells Daniel's story to other pregnant women who find out when they are many months along that their babies are terminally ill or severely disabled. Through an online support group, she listens as they work through their options; if they choose abortion, she tells them what to expect.

These days she also prays for one of the few doctors in the nation who will take them as patients: Dr. George R. Tiller, who performed her abortion. Specializing in late second- and third-trimester abortions, his clinic here draws women from across the country and around the world.

Tiller's clinic aborted 295 viable fetuses last year and 318 the year before; his website says that he has performed more late-term abortions than anyone else practicing in the Western Hemisphere.

But the clinic is now under criminal investigation for some of those procedures.

Like most states, Kansas does not permit abortions of viable fetuses unless carrying the pregnancy to term would substantially and irreversibly damage the mother's health. Kansas Atty. Gen. Phill Kline is investigating whether Tiller's patients were truly in that much danger. Tiller's lawyers respond that he has "always consistently, carefully and appropriately followed the law in all respects."

Kline, who opposes all abortions, maintains that the mental health concerns some women cite as their main reason for terminating — including depression or anxiety about raising a disabled child — do not justify late-term abortions under Kansas law. He has demanded access to the medical records of dozens of patients. The clinic has appealed to the state Supreme Court; a decision is expected within weeks.

Tiller's patients await the ruling with mounting anger. They say no outsider could ever understand the complex tangle of emotions that brought them to Women's Health Care Services — the psychological and physical strains that made continuing their pregnancies unbearable.

"I don't know what I would have done had [Dr. Tiller] not been available to me," said Katie Plazio, a financial analyst from New Jersey. "That's selfish, I know. I feel selfish. But … doesn't everyone want the best for themselves and their family?"

Like Becker and most women who spoke for this story, Plazio asked to use her middle and maiden names to protect her privacy. Many of Tiller's patients have not told their co-workers, friends or even close relatives that they had terminated pregnancies. Their abortions were verified by a review of clinic records they supplied.

For Plazio, the heartache began with the unexpected. After a decade of infertility, she was stunned to feel a kick to her ribs as she sat through a meeting in February 2001. She had been dieting for weeks, running five miles a day — and wondering why she still couldn't squeeze into her pants. She was six months pregnant.

Overjoyed, Plazio and her husband scheduled an amniocentesis. The preliminary results were clean; bursting with excitement, Plazio, then 43, bought a baby blanket dotted with pale blue bunnies. Ten days later, her doctor called with devastating news: More complete genetic tests had determined that their son had Down syndrome.

Plazio had studied special education in college; working with adults with Down syndrome, she had seen their lives as lonely, frustrating, full of hurt. She was not sure she could find joy in raising her son to such a future. She didn't think she could cope with what she expected would be a lifetime of sadness and struggle.

Giving her son up for adoption seemed even worse — to wake each morning not knowing where he was, imagining him scared and alone. "I could not live with that fear all my life," Plazio said.

"I don't want anyone to think that I did this all for Matthew," she said. "I was not just sparing him problems. I was sparing my daughter, my husband, me and all those who depend on me…. I knew the limits of my family and my marriage. Maybe there are families who can handle it all. Maybe they are better people. But I knew I could not do it."

In March 2001, a week into her third trimester, she and her husband flew to Tiller's clinic. They took the bunny blanket and a teddy bear with a big red heart on its chest — a gift to the baby from their daughter, then 11.

Since her abortion, Plazio has suffered such severe panic attacks that she can't drive even as far as the high school to watch her daughter cheerlead. She has gained 60 pounds as she battles depression. The abortion she sought to preserve her mental health has left her deeply shaken; doctors say she suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Her mental health, she is convinced, would be even worse had she tried to raise a profoundly disabled son — or had she given him up for adoption.

The abortion "released my poor sick baby back to the angels," she said. "The only thing I wish I had done differently was realize I was pregnant months earlier."

Third-trimester terminations like Plazio's are unusual.

About 95% of U.S. abortions are performed within the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit center for reproductive rights and health research.

About 20,000 women a year seek abortions after the 21st week, which marks roughly the midway point in a pregnancy. Perhaps 1,000 terminate after 24 weeks, when the fetus is generally considered viable. The practice, though rare, makes many Americans uneasy. While 60% say abortion should be legal in the first trimester of pregnancy, 12% say it should be legal in the third trimester, according to a Harris poll conducted in February.

Three clinics in the nation perform abortions in the third trimester. One is in Los Angeles, one in Boulder, Colo. The best-known — recommended by many genetic counselors — is Tiller's bunker-like clinic on a freeway frontage road in Wichita, next to a car dealership. Outside, protesters have erected dozens of white crosses; they maintain a prayer vigil by the gate and try to pull women aside for counseling — especially on Tuesday mornings, when Tiller sees patients seeking late-term abortions.

The women who push past the protesters Tuesdays include young victims of rape or incest who did not realize they were pregnant until just weeks from their due dates. Most are married women with much-wanted pregnancies who got a late diagnosis of fetal anomaly: a malformed heart, a missing brain, an open spinal column, an extra chromosome.

Some of the deformities are lethal. Others are not. A few fall in a gray area: The physical problems might be reparable through surgery, but the operations are risky and grueling.

One patient who had an abortion at 25 weeks in November said she could not bear to imagine surgeons cutting open her daughter's tiny chest to rebuild her heart. The thought of her Emma spending months of her childhood in the hospital overwhelmed the woman, a 30-year-old technology educator from Virginia who asked to be identified by her middle name, Paige.

"Part of me just wanted to let her die," Paige said. "Is that horrible?"

Marie Becker had the same impulse — and the same question — about her son.

At a four-month ultrasound, the doctor noticed that Daniel's limbs seemed short. She told Becker not to worry, but suggested another ultrasound in a few weeks. At that appointment, Daniel again measured short. Becker was told to come back in another month.

Becker, an accounting clerk, and her husband, a teacher, tried not to dwell on their fears for their first child. They delighted in the ultrasound pictures: Blurry black-and-white images of an arm, a leg, a face. In one, Daniel appeared to be waving; the technician typed a caption: "Hi, mom!"

Becker was 27 weeks pregnant when she went in for her next appointment. By then, it was clear that something was wrong.

A few days later, her doctor confirmed that Daniel had a rare and lethal skeletal disease. His organs were growing normally, but his bones were not; his tiny rib cage was slowly crushing his expanding heart and lungs. "His prognosis was death," Becker said. "Not at 8 years old. Not at 10 years old. Within a few months at most."

In her Florida home, with her husband at her side, Becker wept and prayed for days. Conflicting emotions overwhelmed her. She was scared to carry Daniel to term — scared of how she would react to his deformities. She was afraid to abort, sure she would burn in hell. Her son disgusted her; she wanted him out of her body. She loved him. She wanted to protect him.

Becker, who was then 30, blamed herself for making Daniel sick: Hadn't she taken migraine pills before she knew she was pregnant? Hadn't she sipped a few glasses of wine? Was it that ride at SeaWorld, the one that whirled her around? Had that caused his genes to mutate?"

I was so afraid," she said. "It was bad enough that I had inflicted this on him. I didn't want him to suffer any more."

The week before Christmas, at the start of her third trimester, Becker and her husband flew to Kansas.

Every detail of the trip remains vivid. She remembers staring, transfixed, at the freshly cleaned carpet in the Wichita airport. She remembers driving to the hotel through ice and snow — and turning away from a billboard plastered with gruesome photos of aborted fetuses. On the morning of the appointment, she threw up in the hotel shower, then insisted she needed time to style her hair; her looks seemed the one thing she could control, and she took long minutes applying her lipstick.

When she and her husband turned into the clinic parking lot, a handful of elderly protesters swarmed them, yelling, "Don't go in!" and "You don't have to do this!"

The activists were peaceful that day, but there had been scattered violence: The clinic was bombed in 1986 and blockaded for six weeks in the summer of 1991. In 1993, an antiabortion activist shot Tiller through both arms. He now works in a bulletproof vest.

Armed guards pat down patients and walk them through a metal detector at the clinic door. After paying for their abortions — which can cost more than $5,000, depending on the stage of pregnancy — patients wait in a room decorated floor to ceiling with framed letters from grateful women.

"We couldn't stop reading them," Becker said. "When you see how many people wrote letters, when you see how much they love this man, it almost feels like you're being hugged."

Becker still believes that abortion is wrong in most cases. Sitting in her Florida bungalow, her two young daughters playing beside her, she recalled a movie she once saw in Catholic school, of a baby being ripped limb from limb. The image haunts her.

She finds it reprehensible that Tiller aborts healthy fetuses in the first and second trimester (and even, sometimes, in the third trimester when the mother is very young, or a victim of rape). But she cannot censure him too harshly.

For children like Daniel, "the man is a savior," she said. "He's there for women who have nowhere else to go."

With most advanced pregnancies, Tiller performs abortions by injecting the fetus with digoxin to stop its heart. He then gradually dilates the woman's cervix to induce labor. After two or three days of contractions, the women — heavily dosed with pain medication — deliver their babies intact.

Some refuse to look. But many hug their dead children. "It was very important to us to be able to hold her, to give her that kind of respect," said Paige, who aborted her daughter at the end of the second trimester. "This was not just a fetus to me. She was my child."

After Susan Crocker's second-trimester abortion in August, she and her fiance spent three hours cradling their daughter, Isabella, who had Down syndrome. They stroked her scrunched red face and kissed her rounded cheeks. They took pictures of her tiny, almost translucent hands, folded across a green-and-pink striped blanket.

Crocker, a 34-year-old customer service manager, keeps Isabella's ashes in a marble urn decorated with dolphins; she kisses it before she goes to bed each night. Her sons follow her lead. On Halloween, they each gave a Tootsie Roll to Isabella. Jordan, 5, shares his toys with her, propping a little plastic skateboard against the urn.

When a doctor once referred to Crocker as a mother of two, Jamie, the 9-year-old, interrupted indignantly: "No, she has three kids."

"Her daughter's in her heart," said Jordan.

Despite her family's support, Crocker, who lives in Texas, has struggled with doubt and depression. "I did the unthinkable," she said. "I ended my baby's life. Sometimes I think, oh God, what if I was wrong?"

Then she thinks about the room where Tiller stopped Isabella's heart. There was a poster on the ceiling of a leaping dolphin. Underneath, it said: "Set them free."

She believes Isabella is free.

"I ended her suffering," she said. "I owe Dr. Tiller greatly. I can never, ever thank him enough."

Crocker sometimes wishes she could talk to the protesters who shouted as she entered the clinic: "Think about your baby!" She would tell them she was thinking of Isabella then, and thinks of her still, every day, with love. She would ask them not to judge.

"You don't know," she'd tell them. "You have no idea. Until it happens to you, you don't know."

Opinion Piece Published in The Wichita Eagle

Posted on Wed, May. 04, 2005

MY VIEW: PHARMACISTS SHOULD HAVE TO FILL ORDERS

BY JULIE BURKHART

There is an alarming trend among pharmacists who believe it is appropriate to force their personal beliefs on the very people they have pledged to serve in our communities across this nation. Some pharmacists do this by refusing to sell their female customers various methods of birth control.

It is reprehensible that these medical professionals would stand in self-righteous judgment of those seeking prescription medications for appropriate and legal medical care.

The American Pharmacists Association published a Code of Ethics for Pharmacists in 1994 to regulate licensed professionals. Section III recognizes and "promotes the right of self-determination and recognizes the individual self-worth by encouraging patients to participate in decisions about their health.... In all cases, a pharmacist respects personal and cultural differences among patients."

Section VIII states that a "pharmacist seeks justice in the distribution of health resources. When health resources are allocated, a pharmacist is fair and equitable, balancing the needs of patients and society."
Refusing to fill prescriptions based on personal ethical background is a violation of a pharmacist's professional obligation.

The American Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Freedom Project released a report in 2002 that found a majority of U.S. citizens overwhelmingly opposed allowing health care providers to deny services on the basis of religious or moral objections. A remarkable 86 percent of those polled opposed allowing pharmacies to refuse to fill prescriptions based on religious beliefs.

American pharmacists should fill every prescription across the board, regardless of their own morals. The privacy between the patient, physician and pharmacist should remain strictly confidential.

Ultraconservative pharmacists are creating media frenzy and forsaking the bonds of privacy by violating their professional oath. In contrast, responsible pharmacists equitably serve the needs of the patient rather than furthering their own moralistic, political agendas.

A pharmacist's position in society is not to act as an activist for the anti-choice movement. Instead, pharmacists should compassionately recognize the inherent worth of their clients and be accepting of their clients' personal, religious and cultural differences. Unfortunately, misogynistic undertones haunt these pharmacists who discriminate against women by not providing access to birth control.

Women deserve to be provided with the highest quality of care and to be trusted with issues regarding their own bodies.

Julie Burkhart of Wichita is executive director of ProKanDo, a pro-choice political action committee.

Published in The Wichita Eagle

Fifth and Final Talk Shop for 2005

From ProKanDo Listserve May 3,2005

Dear Friends,

This month we will be hosting our fifth and final Talk Shop for 2005. The event is scheduled for Saturday, May 21st, from 10 a.m. until noon. Our last Talk Shop will focus on girls from all social classes and backgrounds who faced negative labeling in school.

Our guest speaker will be Shelly Endsley who works at the YWCA Crisis Center and the Women’s Studies Department at Wichita State University. Shelly will lead discussion over the book, Slut! Growing up Female with a Bad Reputation. We recommend that you read the book before attending, but it is not required.

Public libraries should have copies of the book, but if not… the book is available for sale online at www.half.com or www.amazon.com. If you purchase it at a bookstore, like Barnes and Noble or Borders, the list price is about $13.00. The book is a small paperback, a good read and definitely worth the effort.

So please join us, May 21st at 10 a.m. at 5 Crestview Lakes Estates in Wichita for a book discussion of Slut! There will be bagels, cream cheese, fruit, coffee and juice.

We would love for you to join us! Please call 316.691.2002 to RSVP or e-mail prokando@sbcglobal.net


You can also check out a review of this book by clicking here.