KS Medical Board Decides Rubber Stamping Late Abortions is Bad After All

‘Professionally incompetent’: Abortionist stripped of license over late-term abortion referralsLife Site News reports that erstwhile abortionist Ann Kristin Neuhaus deserved to have her license revoked for routinely rubber-stamping late-term abortion patients for the notorious George Tiller. Life Site News notes that "according to Administrative Judge Edward J. Gaschler, who wrote the Board’s initial order..., there was no evidence that Neuhaus ever saw many of the patients she referred for post-viability abortions."

Neuhaus reported used a computer program called "Psychmanager Lite" to generate a diagnosis without any sort of real evaluation being done on the patient.

Interestingly, even though the set-up for the rubber-stamping was one that Tiller himself set up and facilitated, even providing Neuhaus with space at his facility, the Board had declared Tiller guilty of no wrongdoing. Tiller, through his ProKanDo PAC, had generated massive amounts of campaign money for then-Governor Kathleen Sebelius, who appointed the medical board members to their positions. Once Tiller moved on to the afterlife and Sebelius moved on to Washington, suddenly this arrangement is worthy of revocation of a medical license.

Bribery, like advertising, obvious doesn't cost; it pays. If Neuhaus had just taken over Tiller's PAC and given the money to the current governor, maybe she'd still have her license.

Operation Rescue has some very interesting coverage of the hearing:

Psych Manager Lite? Day 1 of the Neuhaus Disciplinary Hearing Reveals Shoddy Record-Keeping, Diagnostics - First, Neuhaus's lawyer tried to get the Board's expert disqualified because she doesn't live in Kansas and thus wouldn't understand how Kansas law applied. The judge noted that standards of psychiatric care don't depend on geography. Next, the lawyer tried to get 10 of the 11 counts dismissed on the grounds that the law broken refers to "women," and that since those patients were all underage the word "women" couldn't apply to them. The judge agreed with the board that the law clearly was referring to any female of childbearing age.

To get information straight from the horse's mouth, Operation Rescue posted the Medical Board findings. Here is a sample of what the Board had to say about the assessment Neuhaus performed on her patients:

Patient 1: Age 16, 26+ weeks pregnant.

[Neuhaus] did not provide a review of the patient's psychiatric, medical, or developmental history, prior psychiatric treatment or symptoms, family history, family relationships, physical or sexual abuse, substance abuse, or any other possible cause of distress. [Neuhaus] did not document the patient's physical appearance, mood, or anything personal to Patient #1. There is no evidence of any type of mental status evaluation.

Patient #2: Age 10, victim of incest rape at age 9. From Patient #2's record, it's unclear if Neuhaus ever even met with her. The Board's expert noted that given Patient #2's age and history of incest and rape, she should have been evaluated by a specialist qualified to work with her, including input from other caregivers.

Patient #3: Age 15, 26 weeks pregnatn. The mental illness statement in this patient's file was completed by Tiller's staff. There was no appropriate review of Patient #3's history, as found with Patient #1.

Patient #4: Age 15, 28 weeks pregnant. Neuhaus diagnosed her with Acute Distress Disorder, Moderate, but made no record of whatever traumatic event "that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury" caused Patient #4's condition. The same shortcomings noted with the other patients were also seen here.

Patient #8: Age 13, 25 weeks pregnant. There was nothing in Patient #8's file indicating that she was dianosed with Suicide Ideation and Acute Stress Disorder, though this is what Neuhaus testified that she'd diagnosed. The same shortcomings in Neuhaus's evaluation (or rather, lack of evaluation) in other patients was noted with Patient #8 as well.

Patient #10: Age 18, 25 weeks pregnant. Neuhaus diagnosed her with Acute Stress Disorder, Severe, and listed the traumatic event "that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury" as "unintended pregnancy." Patient #10 had a history of psychiatric treatment but her history was never reviewed and there was no consultation with her treating physician. The same shortcomings in Neuhaus's evaluation (or rather, lack of evaluation) in other patients was noted with Patient #8 as well.

Furthermore:

In some cases, the patients were, according to [Neuhaus], suicidal. Yet, on not one single case did [Neuhaus] make any recommendations that the patient be seen by a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or any other type of mental health behavior. The Licensee simply referred each patient for a pregnancy termination. If the Licensee sincerely believed that the patients were seriously mentally ill, it would seem likely that a treating physician would recommend treatment for these rather serious mental illnesses. Yet, [Neuhaus] ignored these alleged mental illnesses.

(Image courtesy of Life Site News)