Kansas Revokes Physician’s License – for not forcing a 10 year old to give birth!
By Gaetana Drake
Dr. Ann Neuhaus was a colleague of Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas abortion provider. You may remember that Dr. Tiller was assassinated by an anti-abortion activist in 2009, while attending church services. Dr. Neuhaus worked with Dr. Tiller, providing second opinions for cases of late term abortions due to mental health issues.
For several years now, Dr. Neuhaus’ license has been restricted to providing limited medical care on a charity basis. She was hoping to have her full license restored, instead her license has been temporarily revoked based on an investigation into 11 cases of girls ranging in age from 10 to 17. The cases were obtained by Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group.
The investigation claims that Dr. Neuhaus did not provide the proper “standard of care”, based on the medical records they obtained. They believe Dr. Neuhaus did not do a thorough evaluation or provide appropriate follow-up care. Dr. Neuhaus said that she intentionally left pertinent information out of the files because she knew they might someday be subject to review by outsiders and didn’t want to violate her patients’ privacy.
The Kansas Board of Healing Arts will decide next April if Dr. Neuhaus will permanently lose her license to practice medicine in Kansas. Governor Sam Brownback recently appointed Richard Macias, a former Operation Rescue attorney, to the Board of Healing Arts. Mr. Macias said concerning Dr. Neuhaus, “I’m more concerned about the standard of care, particularly the after-care”. I assume he means he’s more concerned about that than the young women who were pregnant and suffering from mental illnesses.
In one of the cases, the girl involved was a 10 year old victim of rape. Rape by her uncle. An expert testified that the girl was too young and emotionally immature to be able to truly assess her situation. But this expert testified against Dr. Neuhaus. The child had told Dr. Neuhaus that she knew she had a baby growing in her and didn’t want that. Apparently, in the experts opinion, being too young and emotionally immature to assess her situation didn’t mean she was too young and emotionally immature to be forced to give birth.
Is this really what we want in this country? For a 10 year old victim of rape/incest to be forced to give birth?
In the last two years over 1100 bills have been proposed (and many of them passed) that had the word “women” in them. If we replaced the word “women” with the word “religion”, everyone would agree there was a war on religion. Why don’t people believe there is a war on women? And now the war on women is also a war against little girls.
Please think about this. If your 10 year old daughter were pregnant as a result of rape, would you want her to be forced to give birth?
Who do you believe is more qualified to help a woman (or a child) make such a personal decision – a politician or a physician? This is a decision that should ONLY be made by the woman (or girl), her family and her physician. Politicians should stay out of it.
Stand up for the rights of the women in your life. Your mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters need your help. The battle is raging.
Eye On Modesto 