GRANDSTANDING ANTI-ABORTION ATTORNEY GENERAL: VICTIMS OF REAL MOLESTORS ALWAYS ABORT

Remember J. Leon Holmes, the Bush judicial nominee who said that "concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami"? Well, now we have a new, equally absurd theory about abortion from the anti-choice crowd.

This one comes from Kansas attorney general Phill Kline. You know he's on a fishing expedition, subpoenaing records of two Kansas abortion clinics. One of the things he says he's hunting for is evidence of child rape -- but this, of course, leads to an obvious question: Why not also subpoena records of births?

At a press conference yesterday, Kline had an answer for that, as reported in the Lawrence Journal-World:

Kline said he doubted many child rapists would allow their victims to carry out their pregnancies. And he said his office would not prosecute consensual sexual activity between children of similar age.

"I have stated that repeatedly; we are looking for the child predators," Kline said. "You do not find child predators standing in a hospital as their prey gives birth to the child that they father. That's common sense."

That's it. Full stop. If you're underage and you got pregnant, we know you were brutalized just by noting that you had an abortion. If you'd just been canoodling with your same-age boyfriend, you would have simply had the baby. It always works that way -- it's just "common sense."

By the way, here are some numbers:

Records maintained by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment show that in 2003 -- the latest data available -- 171 girls under age 16 gave birth in the state; two gave birth outside the state.

Forty of these births involved girls between ages 10 and 14, including two in Douglas County, two in Johnson County, 10 in Sedgwick County and 11 in Wyandotte County.

Records from 2003 also show that 366 16-year-old girls gave birth in the state; 13 outside the state. It's unclear how many of these girls became pregnant when they were 15.

According to Kline, "common sense" tells you that not one of these girls was likely to have been impregnated by a "predator." Not even the one or more 10-year-olds.