Session of 2000
HOUSE RESOLUTION No. 6006
By Representatives Larkin, Aday, Dahl, Dean, Faber, Flower, Geringer,
Gregory, Hayzlett, Henry, Hutchins, Jennison, Phill Kline, Lightner,
Lloyd, P. Long, Mayans, Mays, McClure, Mollenkamp, Jim Morrison,
Myers, O'Connor, Osborne, Pauls, Phelps, Powers, Reardon, Ruff,
Shultz, Thimesch, Toplikar and Vickrey
1-20
15 A RESOLUTION requiring the attorney general to bring action to de-
16 termine the constitutionality of Kansas statutes, administrative orders
17 and executive orders that allow the termination, or the use of state
18 funds or facilities in the termination, of the lives of innocent human
19 beings including the unborn.
20
21
22 WHEREAS, The constitution of Kansas provides for the basic organ-
23 ization of state government, defines and limits the powers of the state
24 and guarantees certain fundamental rights to all men; and
25 WHEREAS, The Bill of Rights of the constitution is a declaration of
26 the basic rights of all men that may not be denied or infringed upon by
27 the state or any local government; and
28 WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court holds that the very
29 purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from political
30 debate, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to
31 establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. (See West
32 Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 638 (1943));
33 and
34 WHEREAS, Section one of the Bill of Rights of the constitution of
35 Kansas states that "All men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural
36 rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The
37 right to life, logically enumerated first, is the basic, most fundamental
38 right without which all others are meaningless; and
39 WHEREAS, The term "men" is accepted to include adult males,
40 women, and children, in other word, all human beings; and
41 WHEREAS, All medical and scientific evidence acknowledges and af-
42 firms that children before birth share all the basic attributes of human
43 personality--that they in fact are identifiable individual human beings;
2
1 the unborn child is considered a person for purposes of qualifying for
2 medical care under the federal medicaid program; modern medicine
3 treats unborn children as patients; through ultrasound imaging and other
4 techniques we can see the child's amazing development; by using DNA
5 profiling, before birth, indeed, even before the new being is implanted
6 in her mother's womb, we can be absolutely sure we are monitoring the
7 same individual from conception/fertilization through the various stages
8 of growth; and
9 WHEREAS, The legislature of the state of Kansas has acknowledged,
10 even as recently as 1994, that a human being exists before birth by re-
11 quiring the postponement of the execution of a pregnant convict "until
12 the child is born." [K.S.A. 22-4009 (b)]; and
13 WHEREAS, The Kansas supreme court acknowledged in Smith v.
14 Deppish, 248 Kansas 217, 231 (1991) that "we humans create human
15 offspring by transferring our DNA to our children" and that this is done
16 "during reproduction...," also known biologically as fertilization or con-
17 ception, or both. The Court further acknowledged in Smith v. Deppish,
18 248 Kansas 217, 232 (1991) that "each persons" DNA can be "individu-
19 alized"; and
20 WHEREAS, A controversy now exists when the pregnancy of a woman
21 constitutes the presence of a second person in order to qualify for med-
22 icaid while at the same time allowing such funds to be expended for the
23 purpose of terminating the life of that "second person" as well as the lives
24 of other preborn human beings. Through the use of matching funds in,
25 and the administration of, the medicaid program and the use of state
26 facilities in the termination of the lives of innocent human beings, the
27 state has become a direct party in violating section 1 of the Bill of Rights
28 of the constitution of Kansas; and
29 WHEREAS, This matter involves issues of law which have never been
30 resolved by the courts of the state of Kansas except to the extent questions
31 have been raised in the Kansas Supreme Court by City of Wichita vs.
32 Elizabeth A. Tilson, 253 Kansas 285 (1991): Now, therefore,
33 Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of Kan-
34 sas: That, based on undeniable medical, biological and scientific facts,
35 we do hereby acknowledge and affirm that the unborn children in the
36 state of Kansas have an equal and inalienable right to life from conception/
37 fertilization and that allowing the termination of the lives of innocent
38 human beings even before birth violates section 1 of the Bill of Rights of
39 the Kansas Constitution; and
40 Be it further resolved: That in accordance with K.S.A. 75-702, the
41 attorney general of the state of Kansas is hereby required to seek final
42 solution of this issue in the supreme court of the state of Kansas and such
43 other courts as may be warranted; the attorney general is further directed
3
1 to bring action in mandamus and quo warranto against the governor as
2 chief executive officer of the state and the secretary of social and reha-
3 bilitation services as administrative officer of the medicaid program in
4 Kansas for the granting of a prospective permanent injunction barring
5 the defendants from expending state funds for the purpose of paying for
6 the termination of the lives of innocent human beings, whether in utero
7 or ex utero; and the attorney general is further directed and ordered to
8 plead to the court that upon conception/fertilization there is life, that this
9 life is that of a human being and to further plead to the court to acknowl-
10 edge and affirm that this human being is an "individual", a "man" under
11 the constitution of the state of Kansas. The most recent medical, biolog-
12 ical, and scientific facts and developments, especially those concerning
13 the beginning of life and the incontestable reliance on DNA profiling as
14 a positive means of identification, must be presented to the court in sup-
15 port of the above mentioned plea.