WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, whose Roman Catholic archdiocese covers northeast Kansas, on May 9 called on Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to stop taking Communion until she disowns her support for the "serious moral evil" of abortion. That put the church in conflict with a rising star of the Democratic Party, often described as a "moderate" and perhaps the leading prospect to become Barack Obama's vice presidential running mate.

Naumann also took Sebelius to task for her veto April 21 of a bill, passed two to one by both houses of the Kansas Legislature, which would strengthen the state's ban on late-term abortions by authorizing private lawsuits against providers. That followed by a year her veto of a bill requiring explicit medical reasons for a late abortion, which was preceded by vetoing other abortion legislation in 2006, 2005 and 2003.

Those positions are necessary for Democratic politicians to pass their party's pro-choice litmus test, but Sebelius' connection with abortion is more intimate. She is allied with the aggressive Kansas branch of Planned Parenthood in a bitter struggle with anti-abortion activist District Attorney Phill Kline.

Supremely Wrong

Machine politics is generally associated with cities, the cynical cronyism that is the prerequisite to wholesale corruption and urban decay. But these days it’s at its worst in, of all places, Kansas, under the governorship of leading Democratic vice-presidential contender, Kathleen Sebelius.

Just ask Phill Kline.

The former state attorney general and current district attorney of Johnson County, in suburban Kansas City, Kline is that most unfortunate of political creatures — the inspired reformer. The object of his quixotic campaign is to reform the abortion laws of Kansas — not by changing them, but by simply enforcing them.

In a place like Kansas, you might think, that’s T-ball politics — but that would only be in the Kansas of popular (and Thomas Frank’s) imagination, where wily conservatives are winning the culture wars. They’re definitely not, as Kline now knows well. He started his mission after being elected attorney general in 2002.

The killing fields of Kansas

Written by Tony Woodlief

I live in Kansas, which is reputed to be a more conservative and Christian state than many, and so I have always found it curious — and stomach-turning — that George Tiller, a late-term abortion profiteer, can have such a lucrative practice in Wichita. Even when the state’s legislature and governor’s office were held by professing Christian Republicans, and the same could be said of the Wichita mayor’s office, Tiller expanded his practice with ease. Not only did prominent officials not speak out against Tiller, they failed to enforce already lenient abortion laws, as an investigation by a former Kansas Attorney General, Phill Kline, has begun to make clear.

An excellent article in National Review reveals the trouble Kline got for his efforts.