Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Tiller defense: Larry said I could

George Tiller Testifies, Says State Medical Board OKd Him Doing Illegal Abortions

Tiller pointed to his 1999 conversations with [then-Medical Board chief Larry] Buening and claimed he said it would be alright for Neuhaus to sign off on the abortions in a potential violation of state law.

"He said, 'Why don't you use Kris Neuhaus and that will take care of all of your problems,'" Tiller testified.


Larry supposedly is gonna take the stand later in the trial. Moe and Curly are waiting in the wings.

UPDATE: Tiller Admits He Personally Profited Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars Due to Neuhaus’ Consultations:

At one point, Tiller began to refer to his relationship with Neuhaus saying, “When she was working for me,“ but quickly issued a correction stating, “when she was providing consultations for patients.”

....

Another dramatic moment regarding how Tiller actually viewed his affiliation with Neuhaus came when he discussed how long it took to make arrangements for Neuhaus to begin consulting for him.

“When someone new was going to join your organization, it would take time [to set up],” he said.

Tiller testified that he approved the amount of Neuhaus’ consulting fee. She charged $250-300 per consultation.

Tiller admitted that he profited financially by Neuhaus consulting with his patients. He estimated that he did 250-300 post-viability abortions in 2003 at an average cost of $6,000. He said that without Neuhaus’ help, he would not have been able to do those abortions.

He told the court that his overhead is 62% of the fees generated by his clinic. His salary is 38% of the gross income of his clinic. Tiller never said how much money he made from abortions prior to viability.

“Doing the math, Tiller personally made at least $684,000 killing viable babies in 2003, and we don’t know how much he made killing non-viable babies,” said Newman. “But we do know it would be a huge blow to the Tiller income if he were unable to do the late-term abortions for lack of a second Kansas referring physician.”

7 comments:

army_wife said...

OK, so Tiller basically made the prosecution's case FOR them right there. He had to admit to it all. So... I hope the jury is paying close attention! I don't see how they could NOT convict now, for sure.

As a side note, although I know the issue at hand isn't funny, I had to smile at the three stooges joke in there. I also had another funny thought. I bet after that testimony, Tiller sat and thought about it and mentally did his best Homer Simpson impression -- "D'OH!!!"

Christina Dunigan said...

It's all gonna hinge on how they view all the consultations with the medical board and the lawyer.

If they see it as "He was trying to figure out how to comply with the law" he'll walk.

If they see it as "He was trying to figure out how to evade the law" he's screwed.

army_wife said...

"And at the end of the Tiller trial, they can still kill the baby".

*Sigh*, the jury found him not guilty. I had high hopes for this trial. What a miscarriage of justice.

Christina Dunigan said...

It was an abortion of justice. Plain and simple.

This trial established once and for all that there is NOTHING Tiller can do so bad, or so flagrantly in violation of the law, that he'll be held accountable by his fellow citizens.

Are they PROUD to be a baby-killing mecca?

Kathy said...

I recently read the Grand Jury statement in which they declined to indict him -- basically it said, "We believe he was performing abortions in direct contradiction to what the clear intent of the law was... but since the Supreme Court insists that these abortions be allowed, we won't indict since he'll walk." And they recommended the law be changed. How, I'm not sure, since the wording is as strict as possible under the current SC rulings about abortion. Argh.

Christina Dunigan said...

Cool, Kathy. Got a link?

Kathy said...

Here is the link to the statement; and here is LifeNews.com's rebuttal to that interpretation, fwiw.