In baseball, it’s three strikes, you’re out. But there’s unfortunately no such guaranteed result in Kansas for an abortionist who has now lost her state medical license for the third time and could appeal the ruling again.

In a quiet release online July 7th, the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts issued its third order revoking the license of Ann Kristin Neuhaus, who was issuing “second opinions” approving post-viability abortions in Kansas from 1999-2006. The Board also maintained its demand for her to pay approximately $31,000 in legal expenses–which is only a fraction of the costs accrued in pursuing this legal action.

The new Board disciplinary order is subject to an appeal process; in the past that has meant Shawnee County District Judge Franklin Theis would essentially overturn it. The Board revoked Neuhaus’ license in 2012 and again in 2015 but both times Judge Theis returned the matter to the Board for “reconsideration.”

The Board originally went after Neuhaus’ license for her failure in 2003 to properly diagnose and create adequate medical files for eleven pregnant teens (aged 10-18) obtaining third trimester abortions at the Wichita clinic of the late George Tiller.

POST-VIABILITY “MENTAL HEALTH” EXCEPTIONS

What triggered her deficient diagnosis and record-keeping was the very way late-term abortions were obtained in Kansas years ago… as verified in a Wichita trial record from May 2007. Kansas law had required an “independent” second medical opinion for post-viability abortions performed to prevent “substantial and irreversible” damage to the mother’s mental health. Neuhaus worked inside Tiller’s facility, interviewing these “mental health” abortion-seekers (almost exclusively from out-of-state) just minutes before the abortion was initiated– and granting them mental health exceptions to proceed.

The Board initially revoked Neuhaus’ license for (1) violating the professional “standard of care” and (2) ignoring agency regulations for appropriate record-keeping. In 2014, Judge Theis dismissed the standard of care violation and downplayed the record-keeping infractions.

After that, the Board framed revocation solely for inadequate record-keeping and reissued the order. Judge Theis again sent it back in a 97-page ruling quibbling about the Board’s methods of evaluating her offenses.

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The Board had to, again, revisit the case, and it was the subject of a non-public session last month. Its resolve to revoke has not weakened.

DEFICIENT MEDICAL FILES

Neuhaus has belligerently– though unconvincingly– maintained that the gross lack of medical data and diagnostic verification in her Tiller patient files was done to “protect patient privacy.” That claim has been shot down from the outset by the Board; it goes to great lengths in the newest document to describe the harms of inadequate record-keeping for the eleven aborted teens who had already expressed suicidal ideation and exhibited self-harm. Such patients are described as extremely vulnerable due to age (most were 15 and under) and mental instability, which puts them at an even higher risk of seeking future medical consultation. Accuracy and detail in their medical files would thus be crucial as a baseline for assessing progress or decline.

The Board’s third revocation document reminds that Neuhaus has been the subject of discipline for record-keeping deficiencies in 2001, when she was labeled a “danger to the public” in two Board documents.

In all three orders to revoke, the Board points out that Neuhaus feels “justified in her actions” and fails to “express contrition or acknowledge the wrongful nature of her conduct.” The newest revocation order specifically rebuts Judge Theis’ attempt to excuse her record-keeping failures as “not nefarious.” On the contrary, the Board views the “dismal state of her records” as “purposeful and intentional” and indicative of “incompetence to practice medicine with reasonable skill and safety.”

BOARD CLAIMS FAIR PLAY

Furthermore, the Board defends its cumulative disciplinary sanctions of Neuhaus since 1999 as a basis for establishing a negative “pattern” of behavior meriting revocation. It asserts that its judgment aims to protect the public and the integrity of the medical profession– and is not the result of any religious, philosophical, or anti-abortion bias.

In desperation, Neuhaus and her husband have waged a crowdfunding appeal and internet campaign that misportrays her revocation as undeserved and triggered by the administration of pro-life Gov. Sam Brownback. However, the Board initiated her revocation investigation long before Brownback even filed for governor. And, in an abundance of caution to project impartiality, one pro-life adoption attorney currently on the Board due to appointment by the governor has recused himself from deliberations on Neuhaus.

Neuhaus has not been in active abortion practice for 11 years. She called a press conference in spring of 2015, demanding that (despite a lack of medical license) she still be referred to as “Doctor” and commending herself as “the first woman physician in Kansas to publicly provide abortion care, performing or consulting on over 10,000 procedures.” She then slammed the Kansas legislature’s ban on dismemberment abortions.

Kansans can only hope that Judge Theis denies any further legal appeals of this license revocation and accepts the Board’s unwavering appraisal of Ann Kristin Neuhaus as “incapable of successful rehabilitation.”

LifeNews.com Note: Kathy Ostrowski is the Policy and Research Director for Kansans for Life, the state affiliate to the National Right to Life Committee.