by Jeremy Kryn
TOPEKA, Kansas, September 23, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Girls as young as ten years old were taken to George Tiller for late-term abortions, including young teens whose anxiety over extracurricular activities was deemed a “mental health” risk, according to records from the late abortionist’s clinic.
The records of 11 girls, ages 10 to 18, came to light during a Kansas State Board of Healing Arts hearing examining Tiller employee Ann Kristin Neuhaus’ standards for allowing abortions on young girls.
“I’d lose my dreams,” the 15-year-old Kansas girl who wanted to be a professional rodeo barrel racer told Tiller’s workers. Before her abortion in 2003, she described rodeo as “a second family” and saw being “shut out” as unbearable.
Another 15-year-old girl came to Tiller’s now-closed Women’s Health Care Services from Illinois. She told abortion clinic employees that she had given up on basketball and needed an abortion. She told them, “It’s like it’s not fun anymore.”
One ten-year-old girl, a victim of incest, had been brought all the way from California for the late-term abortion.
Six girls had an abortion after telling Tiller staff that they came for an abortion to not interfere with school or with plans to go to college. “I will get kicked out (of school) if I’m pregnant,” a 15-year-old Missouri girl said according to abortion clinic records.
Tiller was one of a few physicians who performed abortions after the 25th week of pregnancy. Two months before his murder in 2009, he was acquitted on charges that he had not obtained the second opinion required by Kansas law before the abortions of the 11 girls. He remained under investigation by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts for ethical violations that mirrored the charges.
The recent disciplinary hearing is examining charges of negligence against abortionist Ann Kristin Neuhaus, who provided second opinions for Tiller from 1999 through 2006. If the Board finds Neuhaus violated the standard of care, her license could be revoked.
State law at the time required that a second physician concur that continuation of the pregnancy would result in “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the woman.” “Bodily function” was interpreted to include mental health issues as long as the risk met the standard of “substantial and irreversible” mental impairment. Legislators removed the mental health exception this year.
Neuhaus’ opinion for Tiller involving the 11 girls was that continuation of the pregnancy would result in “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major physical or mental function.”
Neuhaus has testified that her records do not contain more information on how she reached her conclusions because she was afraid pro-life groups or officials might make them public.
“It appears that Tiller and Neuhaus created phony mental health excuses based on shoddy or non-existent mental health evaluations to justify third-trimester abortions that would have otherwise been illegal in Kansas,” said Operation Rescue’s http://www.operationrescue.org/ Cheryl Sullenger, who filed the initial complaint against Neuhaus that has resulted in the hearings before the State Board of Healing Arts.
“We are very thankful that the Board has taken action to hold Neuhaus accountable for her irresponsible and negligent actions that could have caused harm to young ladies already facing complex life issues.”
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