Hearing Delayed Again on Kansas Abortionist Violating Law

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Mar 22, 2011   |   1:51PM   |   Topeka, KS

The Kansas State Board of Healing Arts has announced it is again delaying hearings in a case related to an abortion practitioner who evaded state law by making illegal abortion referrals.

Ann Kristin Neuhaus provided illegal late-term abortion referrals for the slain late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller.

The board filed an eleven-count recommendation last summer against Neuhaus and set hearings on the matter for December 20 and January 11. But Operation Rescue, which filed the original complaint against her, announced in December that those hearings have been pushed back to April 12. Now, they have been pushed back again — and they are now scheduled to take place June 6-10, 2011, at 9:00 AM at the Shawnee County Courthouse.

“Continued delays are of concern because the more a case is delayed, the more likely it is to be derailed,” said OR spokeswoman Cheryl Sullenger. “However, we are guardedly optimistic about this case moving forward and will be relieved once the public is protected from Neuhaus and her dangerous abortion practices.”

Neuhaus recently told MSNBC that she would not want to work again in Kansas, but was open to doing abortions in other states.

“It is important for Kansas to clean up this mess before Neuhaus decides to ply her quackery on unsuspecting folks in another state,” said Sullenger. “The KSBHA is recovering from a scandal-ridden administration that gave abortionists a free pass. This is a huge opportunity for the KSBHA to step up and redeem themselves in the eyes of the public by doing their duty to protect the vulnerable.”

Sullenger told LifeNews.com Neuhaus provided the second physician referral for all of Tiller’s abortions for several years and patients involved in the complaint 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.

This is not Neuhaus’ first encounter with the KSBHA. Neuhaus came under Board discipline in 1999 and again in 2001 for medical abuses, which included an alleged forced abortion on a woman who had withdrawn her consent, shoddy record-keeping, and lack of proper patient care.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.

Neuhaus quit as the abortion practitioner at the now-closed Central Women’s Services in 2001. Operation Rescue later bought the building, refurbished it, and now serves as OR’s national headquarters. Neuhaus then closed her Lawrence abortion center in 2003 and, soon after, went to work providing consultations for Tiller’s late-term abortion patients.

In the complaint Sullenger filed, Neuhaus is accused of the following in each of the eleven counts against her including 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, and failure to keep adequate medical records.

The full disciplinary hearing, which will be conducted in a trial-like format with testimony expected from witnesses, is scheduled to last four days.

Tiller was criminally charged and tried for having an illegal financial relationship with Neuhaus, who was the only physician providing the legally mandated second opinion verifying that a pregnancy met the strict exceptions to the Kansas ban on post-viability abortions. However, state law requires a second physician have no financial links to the primary abortion practitioner and OR suggests Neuhaus and Tiller were financially associated. Tiller was acquitted of criminal charges in March 2009, but the medical board was pursuing an 11-count disciplinary petition against Tiller based on Sullenger’s complaint at the time of his death.