By Sarah Neely
Wichita, KS – Aria Medical, an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas, filed a lawsuit earlier this year against the Kansas State Board of Nursing and Kansas State Attorney General Kris Kobach, among others. The aim of the lawsuit is to challenge two laws that currently prevent Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) from prescribing any drug that is intended to cause an abortion.
Aria opened in January 2023, just after Kansans failed to pass a constitutional amendment that would have established protections for the preborn in the state constitution. Instead, a right to abortion was enshrined in the constitution, opening the door for the abortion lobby to start striking down any law that regulated killing children in the womb, knowing it would have easy backing from a pro-abortion state supreme court. In a matter of months, Kansas went from being a pro-life state to an abortion destination – or, perhaps, a better phrase: an abortion devastation.
Aria Medical’s Bigger Plan?
Aria Medical clearly wanted to cash in on this new “abortion hub,” as Kansas was surrounded by states with strong protections for the preborn. When it opened in 2023, Aria’s website boasted it would help women “traveling from any state” and listed many partnering out-of-state abortion organizations like Arkansas Abortion Support Network and Missouri Abortion Fund.
By December 2024, Elyse Gilbert, an APRN hired by Aria, obtained her CNM license in the state of Kansas. Both Gilbert and Aria Medical are plaintiffs in the new lawsuit, and both would have known Gilbert was not allowed, by law, to perform abortions. Nonetheless, the two parties filed a lawsuit just four months after Gilbert was licensed, detailing the “discrimination” Gilbert was undergoing by not being allowed to use her “education and training” to do abortions – something Gilbert has allegedly been doing in California for the last ten years.
“It seems likely Gilbert moved to Kansas and began employment with Aria Medical specifically to set up this lawsuit,” says Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “Unless Aria Medical hired her under false pretenses and led her to believe she could make money peddling abortion pills at their clinic? The former seems far more plausible. Aria needed someone to challenge the last two laws preventing non-physicians from performing abortions, and it seems Gilbert was more than willing to provide them a plaintiff.”
Follow the Money: This is Not About Women’s Healthcare
Along with the other so-called “discrimination” Gilbert is allegedly experiencing, the lawsuit also complains that Gilbert is being prevented from “increas[ing] her income” while the state disallows her to prescribe abortion pills – apparently the only way an APRN could ever increase her paycheck.
At the same time, Aria Medical spends several pages in the lawsuit arguing that it is being forced to spend too much money employing a fully-licensed medical doctor when it could be paying an APRN far less to do the same job. Aria repeatedly makes the point of how financially advantageous it would be for its abortion business if Kansas removed these two laws.
Newman comments, “Sometimes radical pro-aborts make our points for us. This lawsuit is almost entirely about how much money Aria and Gilbert can or can’t make, while ideas like patient safety or continuity of care take a backseat. They want Kansas to strike down these laws so they can fill their bank account, not ‘serve’ women.”
The lawsuit also reveals obvious turmoil within the infrastructure of the abortion clinic. Aria cites in-house problems with “staffing sustainability, organizational structuring…and stress.” It even complains about “struggles to find physicians to fill weekend shifts.”
“It seems like doctors don’t want to work for this clinic long-term,” adds Newman, “possibly because those running Aria have made it clear they don’t think doctors are worth paying. That says a lot about what Aria thinks their patients’ worth, as well. If it’s true that abortion is healthcare, wouldn’t you prioritize making sure women are able to access the best and safest version of that healthcare?”
Medical doctors have far more training and education than APRNs, especially in the area of diagnosing complex medical problems, like an ectopic pregnancy.
Misinformation Abounds
True to form, this radical abortion lawsuit is fraught with misinformation.
Falsehood #1 – Long Wait Times
Aria Medical and Gilbert argue that barring APRNs from prescribing abortion pills delays women “from accessing timely abortion care.” However, Operation Rescue’s 2024 Annual Survey showed that the average wait time in Kansas was no different than the average wait time across the nation, about 6 six days. OR’s data also showed that Aria Medical, in particular, averaged a two day wait for an abortion appointment. In fact, at the writing of this article, Aria Medical’s own website showed ten appointments still open within a two-day period.
Falsehood #2 – Medication Abortions are Safe
The lawsuit alleges that medication abortion is “one of the safest medical procedures available.” A study published in the same month that this lawsuit was filed showed the abortion drug, mifepristone, is 22 times more dangerous than the drug label currently indicates. Shortly after, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered a fresh review of the drug mifepristone – still underway. Current findings aside, there is also no national vehicle requiring the reporting or documenting of medication abortion complications. To call a procedure with such poor documentation of actual complications “one of the safest” is rhetoric at best, an outright lie at worst.
Falsehood #3 – Operation Rescue Connected to a “Climate of Hostility”
Aria Medical and Elyse Gilbert also attempt to blame their lack of medical professionals interested in working with them on Operation Rescue, the only organization listed in their worn out diatribe of accusations against pro-lifers. They falsely paint the days of Rescue – one of the largest moves of peaceful civil disobedience in American history – as a time of “harassment, intimidation, and violence.” They even mention the death of George Tiller, carried out by a deranged man who had no connection to Operation Rescue.
“Aria Medical and Gilbert are grasping at straws,” says Newman. “And my attorneys will definitely be informed of their implications that Operation Rescue is connected to any type of violence.
“The reality is that 60% of Kansans voted against a pro-life amendment in 2022, cementing a decision by a radically pro-abortion state supreme court to enshrine abortion in the state constitution. Since then, nearly every protection for the preborn has been struck down and the number of abortion clinics in Kansas has doubled. Tragically, Kansas is no longer a pro-life state. If abortionists don’t want to work for Aria Medical, I doubt it has anything to do with a ‘climate of hostility’ and more to do with their poorly run pill mill.”
The Missing Plaintiff
This lawsuit is clearly missing the one group of plaintiffs who would have the strongest case: the patients. However, it seems women in Kansas, or living anywhere else for that matter, have felt no need to bring a lawsuit to the Kansas State Board of Nursing that can ensure both Aria Medical and the single APRN they recently employed can make more money.
Nonetheless, Aria and Gilbert still aim to exploit this group for their financial gain. Both parties are suing “on behalf of [themselves] and [their] patients.” Imagining yet another “hostile climate,” the lawsuit alleges that “judgment and stigma,” alone, have made any potential patient plaintiffs “unwilling or unable to bring a lawsuit themselves.”
Newman comments, “It is far more likely that the rise in abortion pills via mail – which Operation Rescue saw triple in 2024 – is the reason these potential patients feel no need to run to court and demand APRNs be allowed to give them abortion pills. More and more, this whole lawsuit just seems like a staged and desperate attempt from a greedy abortion clinic to recruit the courts in helping them make more profit. Sounds a lot like another abortion group that’s in federal court right now – just as greedy, and just as willing to exploit women and kill children.”
This report may be republished with inclusion of the following acknowledgement: “This article was originally published by Operation Rescue, a leading pro-life, Christian activist organization dedicated to exposing abortion abuses, demanding enforcement, saving innocent lives, and building an abortion-free America. The author, Sarah Neely, is Chief Operating Officer for Operation Rescue.”
