Court Lifts Ban on Kansas Underage Sex Law

[deadparrot]

DENVER - A federal appeals court lifted a ban on a Kansas law that required health care providers to report consensual underage sex to authorities.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday reversed the finding of a lower court, ruling that Kansas has a legitimate interest in information about the voluntary sexual conduct of children that overrides the minors' right to privacy.

Under Kansas law, sexual contact with or among children under 16 is a crime.

The three-judge panel, in a 2-1 decision, ruled that although minors have a right to informational privacy it doesn't exist for illegal sexual conduct. They ruled the state has a greater interest in enforcing its criminal laws, protecting the best interest of minors and promoting public health.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060128/ap_on_re_us/juvenile_sex_law

[varkam]

1. Congratulations kids!

You're going to jail!

[jobycom]

2. Is anything NOT against the law in Kansas?

Except cow tipping? :rofl:

[Erika]

3. So kids can be kids and have sex again?

Without it being the governments (GOP) business again?

Will Falwell/Dobson/Bush allow this?

[Erika]

5. I guess I got it wrong

Sex is big brother's business in Kansas. What a dark place to live. It reminds me of the film "Children of the Corn".

[Jose Diablo]

13. 'Garden of Sand', thats Kansas n/t

[TaleWgnDg]

4. wait. wait. wait. Kansas. Hhhmmmmmm . . .

It's gotta be related to abortion (read: prevention). Indeed. So, let's report all minors who have sexual intercourse. Now. Which of these kids will seek medical assistance for diseases? sexual battering? or anything that involves sex? Nada. None. What will that do, in turn, to the health of kids in Kansas?

Can these Kansas Neanderthals in the state legislature not see the woods for the tree? Is vote appeasement that important in Kansas. Has no one a spine in Kansas? WTF?

____________________

edited to add: And, oh yeah, BTW, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals doesn't have a very good record in ruling sanely on these issues about sex, abortion, and the health of minors.

____________________

edited again to add:

What's the Matter with Kansas?
Why "Kiss and Tell" makes for very bad law . . .


The Center’s case against an outrageous Kansas law is going to trial on January 30th in Wichita. In 2003, Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline issued a new interpretation of the state’s child-abuse reporting law, requiring that doctors, school counselors and psychotherapists, among others, report sexual activity involving a teen younger than 16 as evidence of child abuse, even if the activity is with another adolescent. The law is so broad it would even require a psychologist to report a teen who disclosed that she was "making out" with her boyfriend. On October 3, 2003, the Center filed a lawsuit challenging the attorney general’s opinion on behalf of a group of health-care providers and counseling professionals. The plaintiffs argue that the attorney general’s interpretation violates adolescents’ right to informational privacy and deters adolescents from seeking confidential health care or counseling. "Reporting all teen sexual activity violates adolescents’ privacy rights. This "kiss and tell" law does nothing to address real abuse of children," says Bonnie Scott Jones, Center attorney. The Kansas law is part of a trend by the anti-choice movement to use child-abuse reporting laws to scare adolescents away from reproductive health care.
http://www.crlp.org/crt_news_adolescents.html
(Center for Reproduction Rights website has court documents and further storyline)

PBS NOW did a special on this issue, June 29, 2005 . . . What's the Matter with Kansas? . . . http://www.pbs.org/now/thisweek/index_072905.html

This week (June 29, 2005) on NOW:
In a controversial reading of the state's statutory rape law, Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline has pushed to mandate reporting of any sexual activity of people under the age of 16 and subpoenaed medical records of abortion patients. Kline maintains he just wants to enforce the law and protect children, but critics charge that he's attacking a woman's right to an abortion and putting more kids at risk. NOW examines Kline's policies, which have made Kansas ground-zero for the reproductive rights debate in America. The report looks at both sides of the issue and at the implications for the nation. http://www.pbs.org/now/thisweek/index_072905.html

.

[Erika]

6. Brownback is one sicko

He might be a good place to start.

[TaleWgnDg]

8. He sure is! . . . n/t

[Crunchy Frog]

7. Way to promote public health Kansas!

Ensure that kids will never confide anything to their doctors and will not obtain treatment for STD's since they would be prosecuted if they did. Ensure that a substantial subset of the population will be unable to obtain reproductive health care or treatment for STD's. Does this mean that a child under age 16 will not be able to have birth control prescribed?

Kansas should become a pariah state, especially for anyone with teenagers. With all the kids they'll have there roaming around with STD's, you don't want to expose your own kids to the risk of associating with them.

[Vogon_Glory]

17. Here's Something For Kansans To Think About

Here's something for Kansans to think about. It's one thing if their precious son's or daughter's sexual boundaries are respected because they say that they are committed to abstinence before marriage. It'll be something else, something quite humiliating, if they're seen as unclean because of their birth-state or if they're seen as a possible source of contamination to others.

[Gman]

9. Sounds like an Alito opinion

[ClintonTyree]

10. How can anyone live in that state?

Other than the always frightened, religiofacists I mean. I know it's dumb to paint everyone from Kansas with such a broad stroke but it seems that a vast majority of people there think like this and they're the ones making the law. Is it any wonder the state is losing it's young people at an alarming rate? You're not going to "keep them down on the farm" if all you do is repress normal human desires. Kansas scares me. Living in New York I can't wrap my mind around the "heartland" mindset, it seems so stifling and repressive. The 19th century seems to be alive and well in the state of Kansas.

[saigon68]

11. Apparently no more sex with sheep, cows etc

Those farm-boys will be righteously pissed.

[KainNero]

12. I've never understood

Kansas even though I have a friend living there.

First intelligent design...Bush talking at KSU....

[winston61]

14. It's hard to believe that Kansas

was once part of the populist movement. They make Texans seem positively enlightened. And that takes some doing. Now I'm not dogging all Texans, and I hope that not all Kansans have the same mindset. I live in Texas and I'm proud of Molly Ivins and the Texas Observer. But when you can compare popular culture between two states like Kansas and Texas and Texas comes out ahead, be afraid, be very afraid.
So, hey Kansans, keeping pulling the lever for the Repubs, pretty soon they'll outlaw everything!

[Odin2005]

19. Makes sense to me.

The Populist movement of the late 19th century was dominated by super-religious types, and many were racists and anti-semites.

[Vogon_Glory]

15. Republicans Should Be Labeled as Bio-hazards

At this point I have come to believe that all Republican politicians should be permanently tattooed as bio-hazards and as a threat to public health.

[Vogon_Glory]

16. Of The Birds, The Bees, And The Jayhawks...

Many of us either have kids, plan to have kids, or remember getting the facts of life from our parents or our schools. Of late, many of us have been told not to have sex with intravenous drug users, prostitutes, and various adult bare-back riders. Thanks to the Kansas state legislature and a conservative federal appeals court, a new high-risk group has been created--persons born after 1988 and either born in or resident in the state of Kansas after that time.

Jayhawkers might become uncomfortable getting the same sort of distancing currently given to immigrants from certain third-world countries where HIV is at epidemic proportions, but they elected such solons and their children get to reap the consequences.

Don't have sex with somebody from Kansas unless you know the results.

[Whoa_Nelly]

18. It all makes sense, in a crazy sort of way

With ID being pushed into the classrooms, then there will be less of a problem with kids having sex! Yeah...sure...all makes sense to me! :sarcasm: