Project Defending Life & Operation Rescue renew demands for full investigation in New Mexico

Albuquerque, NM — In light of the recent revocation of abortionist Ann Kristin Neuhaus’s medical license by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts (KSBHA), Project Defending Life is renewing its request for the New Mexico Medical Board to investigate recent botched abortions in Albuquerque.

Neuhaus’ medical license revocation was the direct result of a complaint first filed by Operation Rescue Senior Policy Advisor Cheryl Sullenger in 2006, alleging violations of the standards of patient care and a Kansas law that allowed only narrow exceptions to a ban on post-viability abortions.

In Kansas, Neuhaus provided the required second consenting opinion that the continuation of a pregnancy would cause “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” of the woman if the pregnancy continued. All of Neuhaus’ referrals for late-term abortions were made to George Tiller’s Women’s Health Care Services in Wichita on mental health grounds between 1999 and 2007.

Neuhaus’ disciplinary charges were based on eleven 2003 patient files of girls aged 10-18. While Tiller was the abortionists of record in all eleven cases, Neuhaus provided referrals to all abortionists in Tiller’s employment, including Shelley Sella and Susan Robinson were employed by Tiller in Kansas during that time and now conduct late-term abortions in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Neuhaus’ referrals allowed both Robinson and Sella to do post-viability abortions based on her faulty mental health assessments.

On February 21, 2012, The Kansas State Board of Healing Arts ordered the revocation of the medical license of abortionist Ann Kristin Neuhaus, stating that Neuhaus’ practice of providing late-term abortion referrals to George Tiller was “professionally incompetent” and constituted “unprofessional conduct.”

Neuhaus was found to have violated the standard of care in that she never conducted proper mental health evaluations, keep adequate records, nor did she record any basis for her diagnoses other than a printout from a dubious computer program that calculated diagnoses for her. Her bogus diagnoses were nothing more than rubber stamps that enabled Tiller and his associates to improperly conduct late-term abortions. There was no evidence that Neuhaus ever saw many of the patients she referred for post-viability abortions, and some of the referrals were dated days or weeks after the abortions occurred, making them blatantly illegal.

The same week that the KSBHA notified Operation Rescue that the eleven-count disciplinary petition had been filed against Neuhaus, Shelley Sella cancelled her Kansas medical license in order to place herself outside the jurisdiction of the KSBHA. According to Cheryl Sullenger, Susan C. Robinson voluntarily put her Kansas license on “Inactive” status a month after WHCS closed. At the time of the closure, Tiller also faced an eleven-count disciplinary petition filed by the KSBHA for illegal late-term abortions referred to him by Neuhaus.

Sella and Robinson currently work at Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO) in Albuquerque two weeks per month doing late-term abortions for owner Curtis Boyd, an admitted back-alley abortionist prior to Roe v. Wade.

In July, 2010, both Project Defending Life and Operation Rescue filed Medical Board complaints asking for an investigation into 11 botched abortions at SWO. These grisly abortions have resulted in 11 women being rushed from the abortion clinic to the emergency room with serious complications including ruptured uteri, perforated uteri, and uncontrolled bleeding. As of yet, it appears that nothing has been done to protect the safety of unassuming women who seek abortions at SWO.

Tiller, Neuhaus, Sella and Robinson believed they were above the law in Kansas and conducted their illegal activities at the expense of others. Fortunately the women of Kansas are now protected from late-term abortion abuses. However, the women of New Mexico continue to be prey for Tiller’s former associates, who profit handsomely from the expensive procedures. As a result, women are injured by abortion at the rate of one every ten weeks. Frighteningly, in New Mexico there are no laws protecting pregnant women who need proper help from this kind of exploitation.

“We are once again asking individuals to contact the NMMB and ask for a thorough investigation of the recent documented botched abortions in Albuquerque in light of this new information of wrongdoing by Sella and Robinson,” said Fr. Stephen Imbarrato, Director of Project Defending Life. “If the abortion laws of Kansas couldn’t protect young girls from abortion abuses, how can we expect a state with virtually no abortion laws to protect those coming to New Mexico from across the country for late-term abortions? I am calling on the leadership of the state of NM to use all the powers at their disposal to protect women going into these abortion facilities. Someone has to take responsibility for these women being injured before one of them dies from a botched abortion.”

Contact Information for the New Mexico Board of Medicine:

Lynn Hart
Executive Director, New Mexico Medical Board
505-476-7221
lynns.hart@state.nm.us

While charges have been dropped for now, the investigation of Brigham and Riley’s late-term abortion scheme continues

By Cheryl Sullenger

Elkton, MD — State Attorney Ellis Rollins told reporters on Wednesday that he withdrew murder charges against abortionist Steven Chase Brigham and Nicola Irene Riley on Tuesday because his expert witness succumbed to pressure “from [the expert's] colleagues in the late-term abortion community.”

Brigham and Riley had been charged with the murder of viable pre-born babies under Maryland’s fetal homicide law that allows prosecutions of those who kill viable babies in the commission of a crime.

The two abortionists conducted a bi-state late-term abortion operation in which women would begin their abortions at Brigham’s main office in Voorhees, New Jersey, — where he was not licensed to do abortions past 14 weeks — then return the next day when they travelled in caravan to a clandestine abortion clinic in Elkton for the completion of the abortion. While Riley is licensed in Maryland, Brigham holds no medical license in that state. The operation was discovered when one of their patients suffered life-threatening botched abortion injuries that required her to be airlifted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for emergency surgery to save her life.

Brigham’s defense challenged the jurisdictional authority of Maryland to charge the abortionists, alleging that the deaths of the babies actually took place in New Jersey with Maryland only being the site where the remains were evacuated from the mother’s womb.

Rollins said that the Elkton police conducted their own investigation and determined that the babies died in Maryland, not in New Jersey as the defense contends. An expert witness for the state was retained, who confirmed that the deaths took place in Maryland. The witness, who Rollins has declined to identify, is considered an expert in late-term abortions.

“He led us to believe that the medical evidence pointed to the fact that both parts of the abortion process had to have occurred in Maryland. He was unequivocal,” Rollins said.

But last week, a phone call between Rollins and the expert witness indicated that the witness had been in contact with other late-term abortionists who were pressuring him to change his views. “In the phone call, he indicated that he was feeling pressure from some colleagues. We did what we could to reassure him,” Rollins said.

Then on Friday, the witness sent an “unsolicited e-mail” to Rollins indicating that he was now unsure where the deaths of the babies occurred.

“There can be no doubt that late-term abortionists fearing for their own careers applied pressure to the witness and he succumbed under the pressure. In other words, he was bullied into bowing out of the case,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “We have seen some of the documents for ourselves and the evidence is strong that the babies were still alive when they were dismembered at that Elkton abortion mill.”

Since the passing of the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, late-term abortionists have adopted what has become known as the Induction Abortion method. In this kind of abortion, the living is injected through the mother’s abdominal wall with digoxin or some other drug that causes “fetal demise” or the death of the baby in the womb. The woman’s cervix is then packed with laminaria, which are thin tampon-like dilators made of seaweed that gently expand the opening of the womb. The woman is then given drugs to initiate labor. Finally, the abortionist extracts the dead baby either intact or in parts.

Brigham’s defense indicated that the fetal demise would have taken place in New Jersey. This would have been done with the lethal fetal injection.

“The injection process is a tricky one, and it is not unusual for the injection to fail. But in this case, Brigham’s own records indicate that he was cutting corners on the process and skipping the fetal injection altogether. That would mean these babies were alive at the time they were aborted in Maryland,” said Newman.

According to records obtained by Operation Rescue through open records requests, there is documented evidence that at least one baby was alive at the time of the abortion in Maryland. Brigham’s own medical records in the case of D.B., an 18-year old patient whose botched 22-week abortion first drew attention to Brigham’s illegal late-term abortion enterprise, incriminate him.

A form titled Laminaria Insertion & Induction of Fetal Demise was produced at Brigham’s Voorhees, New Jersey, facility on August 12, 2010, the day before D.B. botched surgery in Maryland. On that form, Brigham documents a pelvic exam and laminaria insertion, but the section of the form that is supposed to document an injection into the baby that would bring about fetal demise is left blank.

“Without the fetal injection, nothing in the process that took place in New Jersey could have killed the baby,” said Newman. “Given the record we have seen, that baby died in Maryland.”

“We know what they (Brigham and Riley) had done, but we can’t prove where they did it,” Rollins said.

Rollins indicated that he withdrew the charges because he did not have time to obtain another expert before next week’s scheduled motions hearing. Meanwhile Rollins told the Cecil Whig newspaper that they are still pursuing the case against the abortionists and that the investigation remains open.

“We’re still investigating. We’re going back to the drawing board and we’re starting all over,” he said.

“We have one message for Brigham and Riley,” said Newman. “Don’t lose the number to the bail bondsman.”

Topeka, KS – New documents have surfaced that show the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts (KSBHA) believes that disgraced abortionist Ann Kristin Neuhaus improperly practiced medicine on an exempt license, stonewalled on her work history, then attempted to mislead the Board with conflicting information about her medical practice after her license was placed on exempt status.

A hearing to consider reinstatement of her currently “exempt” license that had been scheduled for Thursday, March 8, 2012, has been put on hold in light of the Initial Order issued last month revoking her license. Administrative Judge Edward J. Gaschler issued the revocation order after he determined that Neuhaus was guilty of incompetence and unprofessional conduct related to illegal late-term abortion referrals to George Tiller’s now closed Women’s Health Care Services. That order is due to be finalized by the full Board on April 13, 2012.

Neuhaus had petitioned the Board last year to have her medical license restored to “active” status even though there was an 11-count disciplinary petition pending against her. Finalization of her revocation order in April is expected to render her reinstatement efforts moot.

Rumors had circulated that Neuhaus was in a hurry to reinstate her license because she was involved with former Tiller lobbyist Julie Burkhart in plans to reopen an abortion clinic in Wichita. Those plans have since stalled. Wichita has been abortion-free since the closure of Tiller’s clinic in 2009.

According to Board documents recently published on a website sympathetic to Neuhaus, KSBHA attorneys responded to Neuhaus’ application with allegations that she continued to practice medicine even though her exempt license status prevented her from legally doing so. When asked to submit her work history to the Board, she first refused, then finally submitted her history through an attorney that was conflicting as to the dates and type of work Neuhaus was doing between July and September, 2010. The Board had to issue a subpoena for her employment records to determine the truth. Kansas law gives the Board authority to revoke licensees who commit such violations.

“Neuhaus is her own worst enemy,” said Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Policy Advisor for Operation Rescue who filed the complaint that led to Neuhaus’ revocation order. “She just can’t keep herself from breaking the law. Traditional discipline hasn’t worked with her and she continues to behave in defiance to laws because she considers herself above them.”

That defiant attitude was more than evident during Neuhaus’ own testimony during her disciplinary hearings last year where she stated, “I’m here to comply with the law, but once I step into the clinic, my own priorities take precedence.”

“Her long history of shoddy medical incompetence and the attitude that laws are subservient to her own priorities make her a danger to the public,” said Sullenger. “The women of Kansas will be safer once she is officially drummed out of the medical profession for good.”

Other documents made public by Neuhaus supporters include full transcripts of her Inquisition Deposition taken by the office of former Attorney General Phill Kline in 2006, a transcript of her testimony at Tiller’s 2009 criminal trial, a transcript of her KSBHA disciplinary hearing in 2011, and the deposition and report of KSBHA expert witness Dr. Liza Gold. Those documents are now available on Neuhaus’ profile page on AbortionDocs.org.