Anti-Abortion Agencies Requests (Department of Health & Environment)

This communication is an initial response to your requestunder the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA). The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) KORAOfficer has received your KORA request.  Your request identifier is provided inthe subject line of this communication. Please refer to that identifier inany future correspondence pertaining to your request. If KORA applies to your request, your request will beforwarded for processing.  KDHE may not be able to immediately grant access toor disclose requested records due to the number of records requests KDHEreceives and because KDHE must review every received request.  If permitted byKansas law, KDHE will generally grant access to or disclose the existing publicrecord(s) to which your request applies within ten business days after the dateof this communication. However, federal and/or state law may limit or prohibitaccess to or disclosure of records or otherwise exempt records from publicaccess or disclosure. KDHE may charge and require advance payment of a fee forproviding access to or disclosing records in order to recoup requestfulfillment costs including, but not limited to, the cost(s) of staff time andcomputer services required to fulfill your request.  Pursuant to ExecutiveOrder 18-05, KDHE will not assess any charge or fee for the copying ofdocuments up to and including one hundred pages when a request is made by aKansas resident.  You will receive notice if advance payment is requiredor if the cost(s) of fulfilling your request exceed(s) the initially estimatedor requested fee. KDHE kindly requests that you use our online portal for future KORA requests. It is located here: https://khap2.kdhe.state.ks.us/KORARequestForm/KORARequestForm.aspx (https://khap2.kdhe.state.ks.us/KORARequestForm/KORARequestForm.aspx) Please contact KDHE using the below information if you havequestions. Sincerely,
Katelyn Radloff
KORA Officer & Attorney
Office of Legal Services
Kansas Department of Health and Environment
1000 SW Jackson Street, Suite 560
Topeka, Kansas 66612-1371
Phone:  785-296-5334
Email: kdhe.koraofficer@ks.gov (mailto:kdhe.koraofficer@ks.gov)
This communication, including any material accompanying this communication, is confidential and intended for the soul use of he identified recipients(s).  It may be protected by the attorney-client privilege, the attorney work product doctrine, and/or other law(s) affecting or applying to this communication.  You man not use this communication, or any material accompanying this communication, in any way if you are not an identified recipient or otherwise received this communication in error.  Please immediately contact the sender of this communication by e-mail or telephone for further instructions regarding the disposition of this communication if you are not an identified recipient or otherwise received this communication in error.

Good afternoon:

Thank you for your Kansas Open Records Act [KORA] request to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment [KDHE]. Program staff has had the opportunity to review and assess the KORA request you submitted via email. Your request states that you are seeking the information as outlined below in red. I have addressed our response to each portion of your request in black directly after the section it is in response to.

1. Any public records requests, as well as any provided responses or responsive materials, submitted by groups with a publicly known focus on anti-abortion and pro-life sentiments. Please include but do not limit responsive materials to those referencing the following organizations:
- Pro-Life Action League
- National Right to Life
- Check My Clinic
- The Center for Medical Progress
- Coalition for Life
- Operation Rescue
- Right to Life.
If there is a group, like a local city group, that has this sentiment but was not listed, please also provide their requests as well.

RESPONSE – KDHE is requesting that you clarify this portion of your request by providing us what dates you are searching for. Specifically, does the date range in number 2 apply to this portion of your request?

2. All communications, from Jan. 1, 2015 to present day, between your agency and representatives of the following organizations:
- Pro-Life Action League
- National Right to Life
- Check My Clinic
- The Center for Medical Progress
- Coalition for Life
- Operation Rescue
- Right to Life.

RESPONSE – KDHE has begun to search for records that are responsive to this request.

3. Any and all requests and documents with following words:
- ABORTION
- PREGNANCY TERMINATION
- TERMINATION OF PREGNANCY
- UNBORN BABIES
- INDUCED ABORTION
- FETAL TISSUE
- PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION
- TELEMEDICINE

RESPONSE – KDHE has determined that this portion of your request would create an unreasonable burden on the agency to fill as it would take weeks to gather all of the information you have requested and would result in exorbitant fees. Therefore, pursuant to K.S.A 45-218(e), KDHE is refusing to fill this portion of your request in its current form. We kindly request that you reconsider the breadth of your request, and should you chose to do so, resubmit your open records request to KDHE with a more limited scope. Ways to limit the scope of your request are by providing us a date range, a specific portion of the Agency that might contain the records, the names of persons who may have written documents that contain those words, and by limiting the number of keywords you have provided. If you have questions regarding this letter or of how best to limit the scope of your request, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this request or my email.

Thank you,

Katelyn Radloff
KORA Officer & Attorney
Office of Legal Services
Kansas Department of Health and Environment
1000 SW Jackson Street, Suite 560
Topeka, Kansas 66612-1371
Phone: 785-296-5334
Fax: 785-559-4272

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This communication, including any material accompanying this communication, is confidential and intended for the sole use of the identified recipient(s). It may be protected by the attorney-client privilege, the attorney work product doctrine, and/or other law(s) affecting or applying to this communication. You may not use this communication, or any material accompanying this communication, in any way if you are not an identified recipient or otherwise received this communication in error. Please immediately contact the sender of this communication by e-mail or telephone for further instructions regarding the disposition of this communication if you are not an identified recipient or otherwise received this communication in error.

Good afternoon:

Thank you for your Kansas Open Records Act [KORA] request to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment [KDHE]. Program staff has had the opportunity to review and assess the KORA request you submitted via email. Your request states that you are seeking the following information:

All communications, from Jan. 1, 2015 to present day, between your agency and representatives of the following organizations:
- Pro-Life Action League
- National Right to Life
- Check My Clinic
- The Center for Medical Progress
- Coalition for Life
- Operation Rescue
- Right to Life.

KDHE was not able to locate any records that are responsive to this request but we would need to conduct a comprehensive IT email search to confirm that nothing exists. As such, KDHE has determined that this portion of your request would create an unreasonable burden on the agency to fill as it would take weeks to gather all of the information you have requested and would result in exorbitant fees. Therefore, pursuant to K.S.A 45-218(e), KDHE is refusing to fill this portion of your request in its current form. We kindly request that you reconsider the breadth of your request, and should you chose to do so, resubmit your open records request to KDHE with a more limited scope. Ways to limit the scope of your request are by providing us a more date range, the names and email addresses of persons who may have written documents from those organizations or to whom they may have been sent to in the Agency. If you have questions regarding this letter or of how best to limit the scope of your request, please do not hesitate to contact me. As KORA does not require a public agency to create a record in order to respond to requests for information, this portion of your request will be closed.

Regarding the first part of your request, which was for:

Any public records requests, as well as any provided responses or responsive materials, submitted by groups with a publicly known focus on anti-abortion and pro-life sentiments. Please include but do not limit responsive materials to those referencing the following organizations:
- Pro-Life Action League
- National Right to Life
- Check My Clinic
- The Center for Medical Progress
- Coalition for Life
- Operation Rescue
- Right to Life.
If there is a group, like a local city group, that has this sentiment but was not listed, please also provide their requests as well.

KDHE asked for clarification regarding this portion of the request on August 6, 2019. We did not receive any further communication from you regarding this part of your request, however, KDHE could not locate any requests from any of those organizations since we began keeping a comprehensive, centralized tracker for records requests in 2016.

If you have questions regarding this email or your request, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you for your interest in Kansas government and your patience in awaiting our response.

Sincerely,

Katelyn Radloff
KORA Officer & Attorney
Office of Legal Services
Kansas Department of Health and Environment
1000 SW Jackson Street, Suite 560
Topeka, Kansas 66612-1371
Phone: 785-296-5334
Fax: 785-559-4272

[cid:image001.jpg@01D19586.96DDF560]

This communication, including any material accompanying this communication, is confidential and intended for the sole use of the identified recipient(s). It may be protected by the attorney-client privilege, the attorney work product doctrine, and/or other law(s) affecting or applying to this communication. You may not use this communication, or any material accompanying this communication, in any way if you are not an identified recipient or otherwise received this communication in error. Please immediately contact the sender of this communication by e-mail or telephone for further instructions regarding the disposition of this communication if you are not an identified recipient or otherwise received this communication in error.