If local prosecutors don’t act, the anti-abortion crowd will expect — no, make that demand — that the attorney general step in. The new measure essentially would force the attorney general to make abortion a top agenda item.
This is pure power politics. Missouri already has some of the toughest abortion laws in the nation. The state, for instance, is one of only five that require women to wait 72 hours after receiving counseling before undergoing an abortion. And that 72 hours is the nation’s longest waiting period, according to the pro-abortion-rights Guttmacher Institute.
As of now in Missouri, abortions are performed only in St. Louis, a base of the Democratic Party in the state. Democratic prosecutors there often favor abortion rights. Giving the attorney general additional power is one more way for the anti-abortion crowd to undermine the procedure.
Kansas suffered through four years of Phill Kline’s relentless crusade against abortion when he served as that state’s attorney general from 2003 to 2007. Kline whipped up a frenzy of court cases, charges, accusations and dubious claims before voters ran him off in his 2006 re-election bid.
Kline received just 41 percent of the vote in that race in a staunchly Republican state, and one that is generally anti-abortion. He then turned around and won an appointment to Johnson County district attorney. When Kline sought to win a full term for that job, voters again said “no” and elected Steve Howe in the 2008 GOP primary with 60 percent of the vote.
In short, Kline was basically run out of the state on a rail. Nobody is begging him to come back.
Now Missouri is looking at the same possibility. Hawley, a Republican, has said he didn’t ask for the added authority, but he supports the proposal.
On Monday, he told The Star’s editorial board that he believes the bill provides a sensible approach to abortion regulation. The new authority provides a “fail safe” mechanism, he said. If local prosecutors don’t act, the attorney general can.
Once again, abortion would be the exception. Mark our words: This threatens to turn Hawley into another Phill Kline and will further politicize an already ridiculously political issue.