KS Healing Arts Board Files Disciplinary Petition Against Tiller Late-term Abortion Cohort
by Staff
July 29, 2010
WICHITA, Kans., (christiansunite.com) -- The Kansas State Board of Healing Arts has filed an 11-count petition recommending that abortionist Ann Kristin Neuhaus be disciplined for negligence and violations of the Healing Arts Act for late-term abortion referrals she made to George Tiller in 2003.The petition was based on a complaint first filed by Operation Rescue Senior Policy Advisor Cheryl Sullenger in October, 2006, and amended in February, 2007. Sullenger was notified of the petition in a letter from the KSBHA dated July 21, 2010. The letter indicated that the petition had been filed on April 16 of this year and that an evidentiary hearing will soon be scheduled. Neuhaus could face revocation of her medical license.
Sullenger discovered that Tiller used only Neuhaus as the legally-mandated second referring physician for all his post-viability abortions, an arrangement that created a symbiotic financial relationship that appeared to violate the law that prohibited legal or financial affiliation between the abortionist and the second concurring physician.
In 2008, Attorney General Paul Morrison agreed and filed 19 criminal charges against Tiller for violating the unaffiliated physician requirement of the Kansas ban on post-viability abortions. Tiller went to trial on those charges in March, 2009, and was acquitted by a jury of six.
However, in a surprising twist, just minutes after the verdict, the KSBHA announced that it had filed an 11-count disciplinary petition against Tiller based on the same allegations at issue in the criminal trial. In a press statement, the KSBHA told the public that the trial's outcome would not affect the KSBHA's plans to discipline Tiller since the Board operated under a different burden of proof than criminal courts.
Operation Rescue was convinced that Tiller was preparing for retirement and would soon close to avoid Board discipline. Tiller associate LeRoy Carhart confirmed at a banquet earlier this year that Tiller had in fact announced his impending retirement to his staff just two weeks before his death.
After Tiller was shot and killed in May, 2009, the KSBHA informed Sullenger that the case against Tiller was closed. Operation Rescue was among the first to denounce Tiller's murder.
The Neuhaus complaint is based on the same eleven patient files that were the basis for the Tiller disciplinary petition. Patients range in age from 10-18 years old with gestational ages between 25 and 29 weeks. All eleven patients were referred to Tiller for post-viability abortions based on mental health concerns between July and November, 2003.
Information about the patients' abortions was gathered from files produced under subpoena at the request of former Attorney General Phill Kline, who fought a 3-year legal battle with the Kansas Supreme Court over access to the incriminating abortion records. Identities of the women are protected and were never sought.
Neuhaus came under Board discipline in 1999 and again in 2001 for medical abuses, which included violations of consent laws, shoddy record-keeping, and lack of proper patient care. The KSBHA declared at that time that Neuhaus was a "danger to the public" and limited her ability to practice medicine.
In the current petition, Neuhaus is accused of the following in each of the eleven counts against her:
· Failure to perform adequate patient interview
· Failure to obtain adequate patient history
· Failure to adequately evaluate the "behavioral or functional impact" of the patient's condition and symptoms
· Failure to meet the standard of care to the degree of constituting ordinary negligence
· Failure to keep adequate medical records
"This petition is verification that we were correct about our allegations that Neuhaus and Tiller were operating outside the law. It is also evidence that the efforts to work peacefully within the legal system that have been employed by us for over two decades are effective at exposing abortion abuses and bringing the perpetrators to justice. The system isn't perfect, but it does work," said Sullenger.
"We wish that this petition had been filed years ago, when our complaint was first made, but are thankful for the Board's willingness to pursue this matter against an abortionist who has been illegally operating for years in a manner that has endangered the lives of women and cost the lives of viable babies that the laws of Kansas were enacted to protect."
