Criminal Code into committee
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● the child will probably have grave physical or mental defects.
- the pregnancy resulted from rape, which has been reported to an appropriate law official.
- the pregnancy resulted from incest.
Under this amendment criminal abortion is punishable as a felony rather than a misdemeanor, as it was previously.
Controlled abortion
Rep. Gaines rose in support of the amendment saying it allows for "controlled abortion as opposed to unlimited abortion."
But he criticized the section as being a complete policy change in the state of Kansas.
"It has no business being in the middle of the completely sophisticated criminal code," he said.
Rep. Keenan opposed the amendment saying that a vote for the amendment was a vote for keeping the illegal practitioners in business, and a vote against a vote to keep the law as it should be.
He spoke of a doctor at the University of Kansas Medical Center who admitted performing 25 to 30 illegal abortions per month. The doctor claimed that he was violating the law because he is a humanitarian.
An individual issue
Keenan argued that abortion should be an individual and medical issue and remain at the discretion of the doctor.
An earlier amendment which would have struck the entire section from the Criminal Code was barely defeated.
The amendment author said the concern of the legislator should be for "due process of law and protection under the law which is inconsistent with such disenfranchisement of an unborn child."
He added that even though illegal abortion is a reality it provides no justification for conforming the law to such unlawful actions.
He concluded saying that the Kansas abortion section exceeds the laws of Colorado and New Jersey, which are held by legislators to be the most liberal abortion laws in the nation.
The opposition to this amendment claimed that passage of the amendment would have been a step backwards at a time when 48 other states are currently considering liberalization in the area of legal abortions.
the majority of opposition was based on the Kansas Medical Society's Committee on Maternal Health report
distributed to each representative.
Code passed in 1868
The report called for an abortion section to be included in the Criminal Code because present outmoded Kansas abortion law, passed in 1868, permits an abortion in any place by any person who is advised by one physician that a woman's life is at stake.
The report also stated that the estimated number of illegal abortions in Kansas annually range between 2500 and 5000. Currently, legal abortions in a hospital to save a woman's life are estimated at 30 a year.
"Since the present law is rarely enforced, the major impact of the current law is to limit abortions by physicians in hospitals. The existing law prevents women from seeking proper diagnosis and treatment from a physician and prevents physicians from providing surgery when indicated," the report continued.
"Each year at least two of five women die in Kansas from complications of criminal abortions."
The Criminal Code in its entirety is the product of five years of work by a specially appointed Judiciary Council and advisory committee.
Their efforts were designed to
Prosecutor is fined
WICHITA — Keith Sanborn, prosecuting attorney, was fined $25 for ripping a sheet of paper out of the hand of Chester Lewis, defense attorney for nine Negro men on trial in Sedgwick County District Court for extortion and robbery.
District Judge Robert Stephan called Sanborn's action a "rude display," and said he had "no authority to jerk anything out of anyone's hands."
Sanborn asked for a transcript of the court record dealing with the incident and indicated that he would appeal the contempt of court citation.
He said the paper was from his personal files and that Lewis had no right to see it. Lewis had picked the sheet of paper up off a table in front of the witness stand.
Leonard Harrison, director of the Lawrence Ballard Community Center, is one of the men accused of beating two Wichita Model Cities program employees Oct. 17, 1968, in an attempt to force them to hire a brother of one of the defendants.
The men are also accused of
20 KANSAN Apr. 11 1969
forcing Andrew Guitierrez, of the Kansas City Community Service Office, to write them $600 worth of personal checks as wages for attending meetings.
In further developments in the 12-day old trial, William Knox, director of the Wichita Human Resources Development Board, refuted testimony given earlier by Guiterrez.
On the third day of the trial, Guiterrez had testified that Knox had warned him that the defendants were dangerous and had called the police out of concern for his safety.
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Knox said he had not warned Guiterrez and had called police not because he was concerned about Guiterrez, but because of another matter.
He said that he had called police because former Alabama governor George Wallace was in town and it was rumored that demonstrations were planned. Knox said he wanted police to know that the men were in town for a meeting and not to harrass Wallace. He said he did this so that the meeting would not be disrupted.
revamp the present Criminal Code which was adopted by the first Kansas territorial legislature in 1855.
The council and committee evaluated and rewrote the code section by section recognizing its
limitations accorded by "due process."
About 500 state and local police in full riot gear and brandishing nightsticks waded into more than 300 students at Harvard University early today and then cleared out the administration building which the militant Students for a Democratic Society seized Wednesday.
Paul E. Wilson, KU law professor, was instrumental in the revision process which necessitated as many as six changes for each section.
Rivers flood in Dakota
Police flush SDS'ers
ST. PAUL - The governor of Minnesota declared a state of emergency and the governor of South Dakota asked for a federal disaster declaration yesterday as bloated rivers pounded dikes and spread over lowlands in the upper Mideast.
Life sentence asked
UDK News Roundup
LOS ANGELES — Grant Cooper, chief defense counsel for Sirhan B. Sirhan, told a jury yesterday the 25-year-old killer of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy deserved to spend the rest of his life behind bars and "should not be turned loose on society."
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