Operation Rescue is asking the governor’s office for records “related to interactions between Sebelius and her staff and Planned Parenthood and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment from May 26, 2004,” which is around the time the records were shredded.

The group’s press release says:

Operation Rescue has filed the first round of open records demands with the Kansas Governor’s office and with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) seeking public records that might reveal who was involved in shredding incriminating evidence against Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri in 2005.

“There is no way that this was routine evidence destruction, as Planned Parenthood attorneys are so desperately trying to make us believe. This was a brazen act that was meant to destroy the evidence against Planned Parenthood in order to maintain Planned Parenthood’s stream of public funding,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “Nothing less than millions of dollars in tax funding and the future of Planned Parenthood as an organization are at stake in this case, because if Planned Parenthood is convicted, it will no longer qualify for Title X money.”

…

“Planned Parenthood’s TOP forms contained evidence of felonies and were destroyed. The WHCS forms that did not contain such evidence were kept safe. That does not sound like routine document destruction to me. It sounds like a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice by the Sebelius Administration,” said Newman.

“We believe there is a paper trail out there that will show exactly who is responsible for the selective evidence destruction. We intend to keep asking for records until the truth comes out.”

Officials say the shredding was part of a “routine” destruction of state documents,The Kansas City Star reported. The records were also shredded two years before charges were even filed. However, anti-abortion activists in the state insist there was incriminating evidence in the files and are convinced Sebelius is part of a conspiracy to hide the documents.

The City Star also reported that the man who alleged wrongdoings in Planned Parenthood has a history of ethical misconduct in the state of Kansas. The man, Phill Kline, was “indefinitely suspended from practicing law in Kansas, saying his investigations were marred by ethical misconduct that included providing false or misleading information to the courts,” City Star reported.

Newman has touted the tactic of charging clinics with breaking the law in an effort to get them shut down. He has toold The Florida Independent that anti-abortion groups such as Operation Rescue need to focus on having abortion providers prosecuted.

“I have yet to find an abortion mill that doesn’t violate the law,” Newman said.

This past March, Newman said that “exposing the abuses of the abortion-cartel” and prosecuting-providers will continue to play a big role in the anti-abortion movement moving forward. “That is what we will be coming down on,” he said.

Sebelius has been a common target for anti abortion activists. Newman explains in this release that, “Sebelius left office to serve as Pres. Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, where she continues to promote abortion.”

The group is accussing Sebelius of “destroying incriminating evidence” that it claims is “at the heart of the current felony charges against Planned Parenthood of Kansas Mid-Missouri.”

Kansas, a state rife with anti-abortion activism, currently has one licensed women’s health clinic that offers abortions: Planned Parenthood. Anti-abortion advocates have been trying to get every women’s health clinic that provides abortions in the state closed down for many years. This past legislative session, laws were passed that targeted clinics that offer abortion, which made it more difficult for clinics to operate.

Planned Parenthood was charged in 2005 by former Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline of 23 felony counts of falsifying pregnancy termination reports, The Kansas City Star reports.

Kansans for Life says records important to the case were shredded by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Officials say the shredding was part of a “routine” destruction of state documents, the City Star reports. The records were also shredded two years before charges were filed:

The shredding occurred when KDHE was under Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Officials at KDHE, now part of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration, declined to comment.

The destroyed records were critical in establishing the authenticity of records from 2003 that Kline obtained when he investigated Planned Parenthood as attorney general. Planned Parenthood also provided copies of the records, but Kline contended that those did not match the ones he had in his possession.

In 2007, after he became Johnson County prosecutor, Kline filed a 107-count complaint against the abortion provider.

In addition to the 23 felonies, the complaint also charged Planned Parenthood with multiple misdemeanor counts of failing to maintain the pregnancy termination reports, failing to perform viability tests on fetuses and unlawful late-term abortions.

Kansans for Life Executive Director Mary Kay Culp said in a recent press release that “only guilty people destroy evidence; not even we anticipated Sebelius and her administration could stoop this low to protect abortion industry criminality, but this proves they did.”

“Sebelius wanted to insure that evidence of illegal abortions was removed before Kline could use it to convict her abortion industry campaign supporters,” she said in a statement.

Anti-abortion-rights group Operation Rescue has released its most recent undercover look at the American abortion industry, using excerpted audio recordings to show “millions of tax dollars are already paying for abortions each year.” Operation Rescue released a summary of its findings on Wednesday, the day before the U.S. House of Representatives is due to vote on House Resolution 358, or the “Protect Life Act,” which would amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to prohibit federal funds from going toward any health care plan that also covers abortion services. (Under current law, federal funds cannot be used for abortion services, and plans that cover abortion must segregate federal funding from abortion services.*)

In conjunction with Albuquerque, N.M.-based anti-abortion-rights group Project Defending Life, Operation Rescue’s team claims to have called abortion clinics in 12 states and learned that Medicaid — using state taxpayer funds, not federal taxpayer funds — would pay for abortions in each case, despite the fact that the hypothetical pregnancies described by the callers were not the result of rape or incest or deemed to be potentially fatal. New Mexico is among several states that allow Medicaid funds to pay for abortions in cases beyond those specified in the Hyde Amendment, which affects only the federal spending portion of the state-federal joint program.*

The group released the audio recordings from several of these conversations including one with the Southern Women’s Options clinic in Albuquerque, where the receptionist told (PDF) the caller certain Medicaid coverage would likely cover her abortion at 26 weeks of gestation, amounting to approximately $8,000 to $9,000. In the recording, the caller explains there is nothing physically wrong with her pregnancy but that she and her husband just changed their mind because he lost his job.

“It’s shocking that our tax dollars would pay $9,000 for a third-trimester abortion simply because of a lost job,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman in a statement. “The vast majority of the American people strongly object to their tax money being used in this way.”

As the Kaiser Family Foundation explains, the federal Hyde Amendment, passed in 1977, prohibits states from using federal Medicaid dollars to pay for abortions unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or the mother’s life is at risk; however, states can use their own funds to cover other “medically necessary” abortions for Medicaid recipients, usually defined by states as those “to protect the physical or mental health of the woman.” The goal of the Protect Life Act, which is expected to pass in the House but not receive a vote in the Senate, is to steer funds away from insurance plans that cover abortion services, making it more difficult for women to afford abortions. The White House released a veto threat (PDF) against the bill Wednesday:

The Administration strongly opposes H.R. 358 because … the legislation intrudes on women’s reproductive freedom and access to health care and unnecessarily restricts the private insurance choices that women and their families have today. Longstanding Federal policy prohibits Federal funds from being used for abortions, except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered.  The Affordable Care Act preserved this prohibition and included policies to ensure that Federal funding is segregated from any private dollars used to fund abortions for which Federal funding is prohibited.  The President’s Executive Order 13535 reinforces that Federal funding cannot be used for abortions (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered) and ensures proper enforcement of this policy.

The bill passed the GOP-dominated House in June but has yet to receive a Senate committee assignment. Though the Senate is also dominated by Republicans, Reuters reports that passage is not imminent. Beyond the Buckeye State, anti-abortion-rights advocates nationwide are rallying for support of the “heartbeat bill,” and GOP presidential candidates Texas Gov. Rick Perry, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich have voiced their backing.

But in Ohio, one anti-abortion-rights activist is taking another tactic, by trying to unseat Speaker Boehner in the 8th Congressional District. David Lewis, a tea party member and full-time missionary from West Chester, Ohio, told The American Independent he is fulfilling a promise he made in February, when — standing outside Boehner’s office in political protest — he announced he would challenge the speaker in a primary if he voted for a federal budget bill that did not strip Planned Parenthood of all federal funds. That day, Lewis said he was arrested for picketing. But he’s kept his promise — last week he announced his congressional candidacy, which is based almost entirely on an anti-abortion-rights platform.

“I want to see abortion become a criminal act, from conception until birth,” Lewis told TAI, on his way to the “heartbeat bill” rally in Columbus, Ohio. He said he wants to see similar legislation introduced at the federal level. ”Abortion is the slavery of today. It is the segregation of today.”

Lewis’ campaign website features three 30-second videos that mix graphic images of aborted fetuses with pictures of Boehner. Through voiceover narration, Lewis accuses Boehner of “giving our money to Planned Parenthood, a criminal syndicate that murders babies and covers the crimes of rapists, sex-traffickers and pedophiles.”

Some in the media have suggested that Lewis is using his campaign as a way to air graphic anti-abortion commercials. The blog Addicting Info suggested that Lewis might be a plant by the anti-abortion-rights activist Randall Terry, who is running for president as a Democrat on a platform entirely based on his anti-abortion-stance. The front page of Terry’s campaign website shows graphic images of aborted fetuses. (Terry founded the anti-abortion-rights group Operation Rescue, but for the past few years, Operation Rescue has been trying to distance itself from him.)

Lewis denied the idea that he is a plant for Terry, though said that the two frequently work and lobby together. He also said though he wants the public to see his graphic anti-abortion-rights ads — he will begin airing them 40 days before the state primary, he told TAI — his main goal is to beat Boehner, which he admitted will be a “David and Goliath task.”

“But David beat Goliath,” he said.

Other than abortion and Boehner’s vote on the federal budget, Lewis’ campaign vows to eliminate entitlement programs like Social Security, which he refers to as “socialism,” “legalized theft” and “a Ponzi scheme,” borrowing Rick Perry’s line.

Before working as a missionary and anti-abortion-rights lobbyist full time, Lewis said he worked in the IT department at a bank in West Chester.

Troy Newman, Operation Rescue’s president, said the allegations are an “unfounded attack” meant to deter Priests for Life “from their critical life-saving work.”

Newman also said in a press release today that he “would expect this kind of slanderous attack from someone at Planned Parenthood or NARAL, but not from a bishop in the Church.”

“This is a very sad day for the innocent unborn,” he said.

According to the religious abortion rights group Catholics for Choice, Priests for Life had “become a business that is quite lucrative which provides Father Pavone with financial independence from all legitimate ecclesiastical oversight.”

Patrick J. Zurek, Pavone’s local bishop, wrote in a letter to all of the U.S. bishops: “My decision is the result of deep concerns regarding his stewardship over the finances of the Priests for Life organization.”

Newman said in a statement that “Bishop Zurek accused Fr. Pavone of the financial mishandling of Priests for Life assets, but those close to the issue tell Operation Rescue that PFL has great financial accountability and has repeatedly provided the Bishop with their financial reports. Each time, he has failed to acknowledge them.”

Pavone is the national director of Priests for Life and is president of the National Pro-Life Religious Council. In a statement Pavone released with Priests for Life, Pavone accused Planned Parenthood of “targeting the abortion of black babies.” He also said the chain of health clinics “is eager and willing to cover up the prostitution enslavement of young girls — including minorities — so long as they make money doing it.”

Pavone has been a prominent figure in the anti-abortion movement. He was scheduled to speak at this year’s Summer of Mercy 2.o event in Maryland.

Pavone is the national director of Priests for Life and is president of the National Pro-Life Religious Council. He has spoken against Planned Parenthood and has backed some of the more controversial members of the anti-abortion movement, such as Randall Terry.

Even though Terry had called Pavone a perfect example of why the anti-abortion movement “is losing” the fight to stop abortion, Pavone has publicly vowed to vote for Terry. Terry, the founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, is running for president as a Democrat as a way to bring attention to abortion. He has admitted his campaign is a stunt aimed at creating “a crisis of conscience for Americans regarding the slaughter of the unborn and thereby hastening the end of legalized child-killing” and attacking “President Obama’s agenda starting with child-killing, but also including our battle against socialism, our enslavement to debt, and more.”

In a statement Pavone released with Priests for Life, Pavone accused Planned Parenthood of “targeting the abortion of black babies.” He also said the chain of women’s clinics “is eager and willing to cover up the prostitution enslavement of young girls — including minorities — so long as they make money doing it.”

According to a press release just issued by Catholics for Choice:

The local bishop, Patrick J. Zurek, wrote in a letter to all of the bishops in the US, “My decision is the result of deep concerns regarding his stewardship over the finances of the Priests for Life (PFL) organization. The PFL has become a business that is quite lucrative which provides Father Pavone with financial independence from all legitimate ecclesiastical oversight.”

Pavone began running PFL full time in late 1993, and subsequently moved it from California to Port Chester, New York, and then to the New York City borough of Staten Island. In 2007 he transferred PFL to its current location in Amarillo, where an attempt to start a seminary for priests was abandoned due to a lack of recruits—despite the organization’s $10.8 million budget.

Pavone has used his own image and personality to promote his cause, posting large photographs of himself in a wide variety of materials, especially outdoor advertising. He often described himself in terms reminiscent of a touring performer or campaigning candidate for office. In a May 2006 letter to supporters, the PFL leader basked in the “commitment and enthusiastic response” of his fans. He added that the “dynamic” of his interaction with supporters—hence, not his commitment to the cause—was “what drew me into full-time pro-life ministry.”

The group also points to Pavone’s involvement in a slew of other radical anti-abortion rights campaigns, including the “pro-life freedom rides” and the Terri Schiavo case.

Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group that aims to shut down women’s health clinics that provide abortions, has been at the center of anti-abortion activism for quite some time. #

NPR reports: #

The Obama Justice Department has been taking a more aggressive approach against people who block access to abortion clinics, using a 1994 law to bring cases in greater numbers than its predecessor. #

The numbers are most stark when it comes to civil lawsuits, which seek to create buffer zones around clinic entrances for people who have blocked access in the past. Under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, the Justice Department’s civil rights division has filed eight civil cases since the start of the Obama administration. That’s a big increase over the George W. Bush years, when one case was filed in eight years. #

Among the several lawsuits the Obama Justice Department has filed so far, is one against West Palm Beach’s Mary Susan Pine. #

According to The Palm Beach Post, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder sought an injunction against Pine last year that prevents her from entering any driveway leading to a clinic in West Palm Beach that she once blocked a car from parking in front of. She was charged with violating the FACE Act. #

Reproductive rights advocates and clinic employees tell NPR that there has been a “relatively low level of extreme violence” because of the Justice Department’s dedication to enforcing the FACE Act. #

However, Troy Newman disagrees. He told NPR that the Justice Department’s approach to the FACE Act is “a political tool to shut them up, shut them down and make them go away”: #

“This is a ridiculous overstepping of the federal government’s bounds and with the intent of restricting our freedom, our liberties and our speech,” says Newman, who says he was sued under the same law by the Justice Department when Bill Clinton was president. #

Newman previously told The Florida Independent that he has “yet to find an abortion mill that doesn’t violate the law” and will continue to work hard to “expose the abuses of the abortion-cartel.” #

Late this past June, Newman announced that Operation Rescue will be conducting a “massive research project to identify every abortionist in the country.” Newman says he needs fellow anti-abortion advocates to contribute any information they can about abortion providers where they live. #

The conference, scheduled for Jan. 22, 2012, at the North Bethesda Marriott just outside of Washington, D.C., falls on two important anniversaries for both sides of the anti-abortion rights movement: the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, marking the 39th anniversary of legal abortion in the U.S.

“This January, Students for Life of America calls on you to Envision the future of the pro-life movement, the overturning of Roe v. Wade/Doe v. Bolton, and a world where no more women cry and no more babies die,” wrote SFLA Executive Director Kristan Hawkins in a press release, which estimates the conference’s attendance at 1,800.

Already, SFLA has carved out panel discussions and strategy sessions that focus not on how to criminalize abortion in all cases, but how to shape the debate and the abortion movement once Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton have successfully been overturned. On the schedule now are sessions titled: “What’s the New Standard of Healthcare without Abortion?” and “How to Bring Healing to Those After Abortion.” Birth control is also on the agenda for discussion.

“Some may say that our theme is too grand, too forward thinking, un-realistic,” Hawkins said. “However, I think it’s just [what] our movement needs. If we are ever going to end legal abortion in America, we need to start talking about it, envision what it will look like, and make our plans for victory now.”

Confirmed conference speakers include the Family Research Council’s Patrick Fagan, Operation Rescue’s Troy Newman, 40 Days for Life’s David Bereit and representatives from the Christian litigation firm the Alliance Defense Fund.

SFLA’s 2011 national conference included Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), author of the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” which passed the U.S. House of Representatives this year.

“Bloodmoney” was produced by Maryland-based TAH LLC and tells the story of legalized abortion in America from the perspective of some of the most powerful anti-abortion rights activists in the country. The film’s director, David K. Kyle, recently told The American Independent he sells copies of “Bloodmoney’ regularly, though it has not been screened in any U.S. movie theater.

The film’s various narratives tread familiar ground: that abortion intentionally targets African-Americans (narrator Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece, says that abortion has caused more damage to the black community than slavery); that abortion directly leads to suicide and psychological damage; and that abortion providers are money-hungry and negligent.

It’s that last narrative that was used on the Utah House floor earlier this year to debate a bill that called for the increased regulations at clinics, a legislative trend that has been growing across the country, most recently in Kansas, where a lawsuit filed by a father-daughter physician team is pending.

In March, Utah state Rep. Carl Wimmer (R-Herriman), who is running for Congress in 2012, showed a clip of “Bloodmoney” –- wherein Operation Rescue President Troy Newman describes abortion clinics having blood and rats all over the floor -– on the Utah House floor to defend his “Abortion Clinic Licensing” bill, which is already in effect. The law requires the Utah Department of Health to inspect abortion clinics twice a year without notice. Wimmer has authored or sponsored various anti-abortion rights legislation throughout his career, including a successful 2010 bill that called for the criminalization of forced miscarriages.

The budget for “Bloodmoney” was approximately $500,000 and financed by two private investors, Kyle told TAI. He would not release the investors’ names but said that, to his knowledge, they are not affiliated with any anti-abortion rights organization. He said he wanted to tell a side of the abortion story he thought was missing from the abortion-related debates during the 2004 presidential election. However, the resulting film is a series of testimonies from longtime, outspoken anti-abortion activists such as Newman, Priests for Life national director Father Frank Pavone, Pro-Life Action League national director Joseph M. Scheidler and the recently deceased Dr. Bernard Nathanson, an abortion-provider-turned-abortion-opponent, who founded what is now NARAL Pro-Choice America in 1969. Many of the activists interviewed by Kyle spoke at the recent Summer of Mercy 2.0, held in Germantown, Md., to protest Dr. LeRoy Carhart’s late-term abortion practice.

Kyle said and the film’s executive producer, John Zipp, were connected to these anti-abortion rights advocates while they were working for Steve Peroutka, a radio broadcaster for National Pro Life Radio, based in Pasadena, Md.

Kyle is unapologetic about the fact that he did not interview any abortion-rights supporters. The only abortion providers that were interviewed are now outspoken anti-abortion rights activists.

“We’ve had 30 years of the pro-choice angle,” Kyle told TAI, explaining that interviewing abortion-rights supporters would be akin to interviewing Hitler defenders in a documentary about the Holocaust. “I’m not going to expose an evil,” he said.

The film was released theatrically in Spain in October 2010, Kyle said. But Americans are also watching this film, he assured TAI, noting that there are about 40,000 people listed on the movie’s email list and that various universities and organizations have bought copies of the DVD in bulk, such as the organization Truth in Action, which recently bought 1,200 copies of the film, its largest sale to date. In its August newsletter (PDF), Truth in Action called the film “a devastating indictment on DVD of the business of abortion” and is soliciting copies of the movie on its website in exchange for “a gift.” The film has also been screened in various
Knights of Columbus halls throughout Maryland.

Kyle said he would like to reach a younger audience, as least high school age.  “We would like to get them in private schools if possible,” Kyle said.

In prayer rallies and speeches this week, the Summer of Mercy sponsors have frequently referred to Maryland as “the Wild West of the abortion industry” for its dearth of abortion regulations compared with other states. But that might change soon enough. The Summer of Mercy sponsors had planned to protest at the Maryland State Capitol in Annapolis on Wednesday and U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner’s office on Thursday and demand for increased abortion-clinic regulations generally and scrutiny into Carhart’s clinic in particular.

However, the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has drafted new regulations for surgical abortion to go into effect once the regulations are reviewed by interested parties, including Planned Parenthood of Maryland and the Maryland Catholic Conference, and then adopted. The public has been invited to give input on the draft regulations (PDF) until Aug. 19.

In the current draft, doctors at surgical abortion clinics would have to ensure that every patient has a physical exam and that all clinic workers are properly licensed and trained. A plan for emergencies would have to be furnished.

The new regulations were sparked by a recent incident where a woman was severely injured during an abortion at a clinic in Elkton, Md., which was run by an unlicensed physician, according to The Gazette.

The Summer of Mercy protest led Carhart to cease all abortions at the Germantown clinic this week. In response, the anti-abortion rights protesters have planned gather outside the clinic on Monday and perhaps throughout the week.

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman recently wrote in a blog post: “As men and women of faith, we are compelled to remain at our post. We will stay in Germantown begging for God’s mercy, until the killing ends for good.”

Carhart’s staff was not available for immediate response on whether abortions would resume next week.