State of Kansas Bill # 6010

Session of 1998
HOUSE RESOLUTION No. 6010 By Representatives Pauls and Larkin, Boston, Cook, Dahl, Dean, Hay- zlett, Henry, Hutchins, Jennison, Phill Kline, P. Long, Mayans, Mc-
Clure, Mollenkamp, Morrison, Myers, O'Connor, Powers, Shallen-
burger, Thimesch, Toplikar and Vickrey
2-6 12 A RESOLUTION requiring the attorney general to bring action to de-
13 termine the constitutionality of Kansas statutes, administrative orders
14 and executive orders that allow the termination, or the use of state
15 funds or facilities in the termination, of the lives of innocent human
16 beings including the unborn.
17
18 WHEREAS, Section one of the bill or rights of the constitution of
19 Kansas states that ``All men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural
20 rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'' The
21 right to life, logically enumerated first, is the basic, most fundamental
22 right without which all others are meaningless; and
23 WHEREAS, The United States supreme court has acknowledged that
24 those same rights, declared also in the Declaration of Independence, are
25 so basic and fundamental that they ``may not be subjected to vote; they
26 depend on the outcome of no elections.'' West Virginia State Board of
27 Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 638 (1943); and
28 WHEREAS, The term ``men'' is accepted to include adult males,
29 women and children, in other words, all human beings; and
30 WHEREAS, All medical and scientific evidence increasingly acknowl-
31 edges and affirms that children before birth share all the basic attributes
32 of human personality--that they in fact are persons; the unborn child is
33 considered a person for purposes of qualifying for medical care under the
34 federal medicaid program; modern medicine treats unborn children as
35 patients; through ultrasound imaging and other techniques we can see
36 the child's amazing development; by using DNA profiling, before birth,
37 indeed, even before the new being is implanted in her mother's womb,
38 we can be absolutely sure we are monitoring the same individual from
39 fertilization or conception, or both, through the various stages of growth;
40 and
41 WHEREAS, The United States supreme court itself noted, the deci-
42 sion in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 159 (1973) rested upon an earlier
43 state of medical technology; the Court further acknowledged in Roe v.

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1 Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 156, 157 (1973) that: ``If this suggestion of person-
2 hood is established, the appellants case, of course, collapses, for the fetus'
3 right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the Fourteenth Amend-
4 ment . . .''; the law of the land today must recognize all of the medical
5 evidence and scientific facts; and
6 WHEREAS, The legislature of the state of Kansas has acknowledged,
7 even as recently as 1994, that a human being exists before birth by re-
8 quiring the postponement of the execution of a pregnant convict ``until
9 the child is born.'' (K.S.A. 22-4009(b)); and
10 WHEREAS, The Kansas supreme court acknowledged in Smith v.
11 Deppish, 248 Kan. 217, 231 (1991) that ``we humans create human off-
12 spring by transferring our DNA to our children'' and that this is done
13 ``during reproduction..,'' also known biologically as fertilization or con-
14 ception, or both. The Court further acknowledged in Smith v. Deppish,
15 248 Kan. 217, 232 (1991) that ``each person's'' DNA can be ``individual-
16 ized''; and
17 WHEREAS, The United States supreme court has ruled that entities
18 that ``are humans, live, and have their being'' cannot be ``nonpersons,''
19 stating further, ``They are clearly `persons' within the meaning of the
20 Equal protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.'' Levy v. Loui-
21 siana, 391 U.S. 68, 70 (1968); and
22 WHEREAS, A controversy now exists when the pregnancy of a woman
23 constitutes the presence of a second person in order to qualify for med-
24 icaid while at the same time allowing such funds to be expended for the
25 purpose of terminating the lives of preborn human beings by the proce-
26 dure commonly referred to as induced abortion. Through the use of
27 matching funds in, and the administration of, the medicaid program and
28 the use of state facilities in the termination of the lives of innocent human
29 beings, the state has become a direct party in violating section 1 of the
30 bill of rights of the constitution of Kansas and the due process and equal
31 protection clause of the fifth and fourteenth amendments to United States
32 Constitution. Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 37, 80 (1872); Strauder v.
33 West Virginia (1879); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 357, 370 (1886);
34 Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715, 721-726 (1961);
35 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, 387 U.S. 483, 490, 496 (1954); and
36 WHEREAS, The United States supreme court holds that ``The very
37 purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the
38 vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of
39 majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be
40 applied by the courts.'' West Virginia State Board of Education v. Bar-
41 nette, 319 U.S. 624, 638 (1943); and
42 WHEREAS, One of those ``legal principles,'' the court says, is ``one's
43 right to life'' which ``may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the

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1 outcome of no elections.'' West Virginia State Board of Education v.
2 Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 638 (1943); and
3 WHEREAS, This matter involves issues of law which have never been
4 resolved by the courts of the state of Kansas except to the extent questions
5 have been raised in the Kansas Supreme Court by City of Wichita vs.
6 Elizabeth A. Tilson, 253 Kan. 285 (1991): Now, therefore,
7 Be it resolved by the House of Representative of the State of Kan-
8 sas: That, based on undeniable medical, biological and scientific facts,
9 we do hereby acknowledge and affirm that the unborn children in the
10 state of Kansas have an equal and inalienable right to life from conception
11 and that allowing the termination of the lives of innocent human beings
12 even before birth violates section 1 of the bill of rights of the Kansas
13 constitution and the due process and equal protection clause of the fifth
14 and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution; and
15 Be it further resolved: That because state legislatures have been ef-
16 fectively restrained from exercising any authority to resolve this issue, we
17 call upon the courts to apply the legal principle of the right to life to all
18 living human beings; and
19 Be it further resolved: That in accordance with K.S.A. 75-702, the
20 attorney general of the state of Kansas is hereby required to seek final
21 solution of this issue in the supreme court of the state of Kansas and such
22 other courts as may be warranted; the attorney general is further directed
23 to bring action in mandamus and quo warranto against the governor as
24 chief executive officer of the state and the secretary of social and reha-
25 bilitation services as administrative officer of the medicaid program in
26 Kansas for the granting of a prospective permanent injunction barring
27 the defendants from expending state funds for the purpose of paying for
28 the termination of the lives of innocent human beings, whether in utero
29 or ex utero; and the attorney general is further directed and ordered to
30 plead to the court that upon conception there is life, that this life is that
31 of a human being and to further plead to the court to acknowledge and
32 affirm that this human being is an ``individual,'' a ``man,'' a ``person'' under
33 the constitution of the state of Kansas and the constitution of the United
34 States of America. The most recent medical, biological, and scientific facts
35 and developments, especially those concerning the beginning of life and
36 the incontestable reliance on DNA profiling as a positive means of iden-
37 tification, must be presented to the court in support of the above-men-
38 tioned plea.
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