Christin Alysabeth Gilbert, a 19-year-old woman with Down syndrome, was brought from Texas to George Tiller's Wichita abortion facility for a 28-week abortion. Christin was legally incompetent, unable to give her consent. Information about how this beautiful young woman met her tragic end was gathered by Operation Rescue.
Christin had been raised by her family in a small Texas town, according to Operation Rescue West. She was mainstreamed into her local high school, where she served as a bat girl for the softball team. She graduated in 2004.An abortion at 28 weeks is a multi-stage procedure. Patients would come to the facility for various steps but spend the bulk of their time at a nearby motel with whatever companions they had brought along with them. Christin was accompanied by her parents, Paula and Jack, who brought her back and forth to Tiller's facility in the family minivan.
Remember, these quotes are from the dispatch sheet. It was the caller, Marguerite Reed, who reported that Christin had no chest pain, abdominal pain above the navel, that Christin was alert and had not fainted. The investigation revealed that Christin was in fact in cardiac arrest when the call was made. LeRoy Carhart was performing CPR on a clinically dead patient, and the EMS services are being misled, told that she's alert.
Giving false information about a patient's condition to 911 can jeopardize the patient's life, because it can lead to inadequate help being sent. In a life-threatening situation, the patient needs the care of a medic. If the caller leads 911 staff to believe that the call is a routine transfer, only EMTs may be sent, meaning that there will be nobody on the ambulance crew qualified to perform intubations or to use a defibrillator.
Medics transported Christin to Wesley Medical Center. They had been briefly able to get her heart to resume beating, but she was not maintaining a functional pulse. She arrived bleeding from the mouth, vagina, eyes, and nose. When told of her condition, her parents asked about organ donation. They opted for comfort care rather than aggressive resuscitation, and she was pronounced dead at 4:14 pm. Because of the damage done to her organs during her ordeal, only Christin's eyes were suitable for donation.
On January 10, 2005, Christin's family brought her to Tiller's clinic. Step one was a meeting with Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus.
Kansas law stated that no abortion past 22 weeks could be performed unless there was "a documented referral from another physician not legally or financially affiliated with the physician performing or inducing the abortion and both physicians determine that: (1) The abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant woman; or (2) a continuation of the pregnancy will cause a substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman."
Christin's family was referred to Tiller's clinic by a Texas Planned Parenthood, not by Neuhaus, who had an arrangement with Tiller to meet with his patients and "refer" them. These meetings took place on Tiller's premises as part of patient processing. As was customary, Christin's parents paid Neuhaus by a separate check to "refer" their healthy daughter, 28 weeks into an uncomplicated pregnancy, for a supposedly medically indicated abortion.
Kansas law had a 24-hour waiting period between pre-abortion "counseling" and the initiation of the abortion. However, the same day Kristin was pro-forma referred, Dr. Leroy Carhart injected digoxin into Christin's uterus to cause fetal death. This drug is usually administered into the fetal heart, but sometimes is injected into the brain or just into the amniotic fluid in hopes that the fetus would swallow enough of the drug to cause death. Since this was a 28-week abortion, the normal procedure would also have been to insert laminaria, sterile dehydrated seaweed sticks that absorb fluid and expand, dilating the cervix. Christin's family then took her to the nearby La Quinta Hotel, which served as an overnight annex to Tiller's late-term abortion facility.
Christin's parents brought her back to the facility the following day. Typically, on the second day of a late abortion, an ultrasound is preformed to determine if the fetus is dead, and if necessary to perform a second digoxin injection. The laminaria are then swapped out to provide further dilation. However, Christin expelled her dead baby in the family minivan on the way to the clinic. Somebody performed a D&C to complete the abortion, and a "tear in the uterus" was sutured, though it's unclear if the tear was caused by intense contractions or instruments used to do the D&C. Christin and her family were sent back to the La Quinta.
Christin's family brought her back to Tiller's facility on January 12, where she was given IV fluids because she appeared to be dehydrated. The family went to a restaurant for dinner, but Christin had no appetite and was unable to eat.
Some time between midnight and 4 am on January 13, Christin was cramping, bleeding, vomiting, and suffering fainting spells. The family called Tiller employee Cathy Reavis, the "head nurse" who is not actually a nurse. She was the on-call person staying at the La Quinta to provide patient care. Under this "nursing" care, Christin was given a warm bath and put back to bed. Reavis tried to call Carhart, who was also supposed to be at the hotel, but she was unable to reach him. She did not seek further medical consultation for Christin but instead returned to her own room and went back to sleep.
The next morning, January 13, Christin's family tried to wake her and get her ready to return to the clinic, but she was unresponsive. Instead of calling 911, they used a luggage rack to get their bleeding, unconscious daughter from the hotel room to the minivan to take her to the clinic.
Christin reportedly regained enough consciousness to walk "with assistance" into the clinic, but once there she went into cardio-respiratory arrest. There are no clinic notes describing what care she was provided with during the 45 minutes between when Christin's heart stopped beating and when Tiller employee Marguerite Reed called 911. (You can listen to the call here.)
From the ambulance dispatch sheet, obtained by Operation Rescue West:
- CP VERY EVASIVE; PUT ON HOLD
- CP REFUSED TO GIVE ANY INFORMATION, JUST SAYING NEED EMS
- The caller is with the patient. She does not have chest pain. She is completely awake (alert). She has not fainted. She has pain above the belly button (navel).
Giving false information about a patient's condition to 911 can jeopardize the patient's life, because it can lead to inadequate help being sent. In a life-threatening situation, the patient needs the care of a medic. If the caller leads 911 staff to believe that the call is a routine transfer, only EMTs may be sent, meaning that there will be nobody on the ambulance crew qualified to perform intubations or to use a defibrillator.
Where was George Tiller while all this was happening? He was performing an abortion on another patient. He did look into the room to see what was happening, and told Christin's parents, who were in a separate room, so say that their daughter was being provided with care.
When paramedics arrived at the clinic, they found Christin lying in "huge amounts" of "coffee grounds" blood and fluid, "Way more than you would normally see." A man was on top of Christin, trying to physically force fluids from her stomach. Assuming that the man was a nurse who didn't know what he was doing, they ordered the man to get away from the patient. The man, who turned out to be Leroy Carhart, at first refused but was sternly directed away from Christin so that people who knew what they were doing could attend to the young woman.
The medical examiner concluded that Christin "died as a result of complications of a therapeutic abortion. The most likely mechanism of death is sepsis...."
The Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, launched an investigation into the circumstances in Texas leading to the fatal trip to Wichita, and subpoenaed Tiller as a "material witness". No Texas criminal charges were pending against Tiller. Wesley Medical Center was also subpoenaed. Christin's medical records were being requested for a Grand Jury investigation into possible felony sexual assault.
The court order, signed by Elizabeth Berry, Presiding Judge of the Criminal District Court #3 of Tarrant County, Texas, requested the following records from Wesley Medical Center:
On February 2, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius sent a memo to Larry Buening, Executive Director of the Kansas Board of Healing Arts (BOHA) asking the board to investigate Christin's death.
Tiller is a member of the National Abortion Federation. Tiller allegedly justified performing an abortion on Christin on the grounds that it was necessary to preserve her health or life. I find this claim to be highly dubious. Had the pregnancy posed a threat to Christin's life or health, it could have been terminated within an hour by performing an emergency c-section in any properly-equipped obstetric ward. How it was supposed to preserve Christin's life or health to instead drive her past any number of hospitals into another state, and to perform a three-day procedure with the patient spending the bulk of her time in a motel room under the supervision of only her parents is a mystery.
Operation Rescue West has confirmed that Tiller has an arrangement with erstwhile abortionist Kristin Neuhaus, who is no longer permitted to perpetrate abortion in Kansas due to gross irregularities in her practice. Tiller provides a space in his facility for Neuhaus to meet with the patients, who pay her with a separate check. Neuhaus then rubber-stamps their "need" for an abortion.
The Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, launched an investigation into the circumstances in Texas leading to the fatal trip to Wichita, and subpoenaed Tiller as a "material witness". No Texas criminal charges were pending against Tiller. Wesley Medical Center was also subpoenaed. Christin's medical records were being requested for a Grand Jury investigation into possible felony sexual assault.
The court order, signed by Elizabeth Berry, Presiding Judge of the Criminal District Court #3 of Tarrant County, Texas, requested the following records from Wesley Medical Center:
Any and all records and/or documents pertaining to [Christin], W/F, DOB 5/30/85, who was pronounced dead at Wesley Medical Center on January 13, 2005, including but not limited to medical and patient billing records, and the name of the physician who treated [Christin] and/or pronounced her dead.Tiller's attorney, Daniel Monat, issued a statement that Tiller "received a routine subpoena from the state of Texas for the examination of medical records and items related to an investigation in Texas which is not directed at [Tiller]."
On February 2, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius sent a memo to Larry Buening, Executive Director of the Kansas Board of Healing Arts (BOHA) asking the board to investigate Christin's death.
Tiller is a member of the National Abortion Federation. Tiller allegedly justified performing an abortion on Christin on the grounds that it was necessary to preserve her health or life. I find this claim to be highly dubious. Had the pregnancy posed a threat to Christin's life or health, it could have been terminated within an hour by performing an emergency c-section in any properly-equipped obstetric ward. How it was supposed to preserve Christin's life or health to instead drive her past any number of hospitals into another state, and to perform a three-day procedure with the patient spending the bulk of her time in a motel room under the supervision of only her parents is a mystery.
Operation Rescue West has confirmed that Tiller has an arrangement with erstwhile abortionist Kristin Neuhaus, who is no longer permitted to perpetrate abortion in Kansas due to gross irregularities in her practice. Tiller provides a space in his facility for Neuhaus to meet with the patients, who pay her with a separate check. Neuhaus then rubber-stamps their "need" for an abortion.
A Grand Jury convened in Texas to investigate the sexual assault that had resulted in Christin's pregnancy, but no charges were ever filed.
Christin's was not the only tragic death caused by doctors who recommended (or excused) abortion as a life-saving or health-preserving option for the mother:
Sources:
Christin's was not the only tragic death caused by doctors who recommended (or excused) abortion as a life-saving or health-preserving option for the mother:
- Allegra Roseberry was pushed into an abortion in order to obtain experimental cancer treatment.
- Anjelica Duarte sought an abortion on the advice of her physician, and ended up dying under the care of a quack.
- Barbara Hoppert died after an abortion recommended due to a congenital heart problem.
- Erika Peterson died in 1961 when her doctors obtained her husband's permission to perform a "therapeutic" abortion.
- "Molly" Roe died in 1975 when her doctors made the dubious decision to perform a saline abortion to improve her chances of surviving a lupus crisis.
Watch No Justice For Christin on YouTube.
Watch A Hotel is Not a Hospital on Rumble.
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