Operation Rescue Files Complaint Against Kan. Abortion Providers, Citing Care Of Woman Who Underwent Procedure

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Abortion
Article Date: 03 Oct 2008 - 9:00 PDT

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Operation Rescue is seeking the emergency suspension of the medical licenses of abortion providers George Tiller and Shelley Sella after a 23-year-old woman allegedly suffered an asthma attack and went into cardiac arrest following an abortion at Women's Health Care Services in Wichita, Kan., the AP/Wichita Eagle reports. According to the AP/ Eagle, the woman said she did not file a complaint with the state board and does not remember giving the antiabortion group permission to file the complaint. However, she did allow the group to post a video of her in the hospital talking about the abortion.

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said the group filed the complaint with the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts based on information relayed to it and acknowledged it was not acting on behalf of the woman involved. According to Operation Rescue's complaint, the woman was diagnosed at Women's Health Care Services -- one of the few clinics nationwide that performs abortions after 22 weeks' gestation -- as being 19 weeks' pregnant. The complaint alleges that ultrasounds the woman received at Choices Medical Center in Wichita and her own medical history showed she was 23 weeks' pregnant at the time of the abortion. In addition, despite Kansas law requiring the opinion of a second physician in abortions after 22 weeks' gestation, the woman allegedly never saw a second physician, the complaint says. The complaint also alleges that instead of calling an ambulance when the woman experienced an asthma attack and cardiac arrest, Tiller drove her to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita.

Newman said that the complaint is "really about making sure more women aren't injured this way." Lee Thompson, an attorney representing Tiller, said he was not aware of Operation Rescue's complaint. Thompson said, "I really pay no attention to Operation Rescue and their complaints," adding, "They are without credibility, and their efforts to generate grand juries and to file claims repeatedly found to be baseless is an indication they are a radical fringe group without any believability." Neither Sella nor the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts returned phone calls concerning the complaint, the AP/Eagle reports (Hegeman, AP/Wichita Eagle, 9/30).

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