Kansas Supreme Court Blocks Grand Jury Subpoena Of Abortion Provider Tiller's Records

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Medical Malpractice / Litigation
Article Date: 07 Feb 2008 - 6:00 PDT

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The Kansas Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked a Sedgwick County, Kan., grand jury subpoena of 2,000 medical records of women who sought or obtained abortions after their 21st week of pregnancy at George Tiller's clinic, Women's Health Care Services, the Wichita Eagle reports.

State Supreme Court Chief Justice Kay McFarland said the subpoena "raises significant issues" of both the grand jury's authority to issue subpoenas and patient privacy. The court ordered retired Judge Paul Buchanan, who is overseeing the grand jury, and district Chief Judge Michael Corrigan to file any objections to the temporary order by Feb. 11. The state Supreme Court also asked the judges to justify by Feb. 25 Buchanan's order for Tiller's files to be turned over to the grand jury. According to the Eagle, the Supreme Court will consider whether the grand jury has shown adequate reasons for why it needs individual medical records, whether patient privacy will be sufficient under Buchanan's order and whether the subpoena will unduly intimidate women seeking abortions.

Bonnie Scott Jones, senior attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, also filed a motion to have the subpoena blocked on behalf of two of Tiller's patients. "It's a parallel action, which I assume the court will consider together," Jones said, adding, "The patients have a strong interest at stake. It is their privacy that will be violated if these records are released" (Sylvester, Wichita Eagle, 2/6).

The grand jury is investigating whether Tiller violated Kansas law, which allows women to abort a fetus post-viability only if two doctors certify that continuing the pregnancy could kill the woman or cause "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function." The Supreme Court requires that a woman's mental as well as physical health be taken into account (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 2/1).

Reaction

Dan Monnat, an attorney representing Tiller, said, "Dr. Tiller is very pleased that 2,000 distraught women and girls will sleep much better tonight knowing the chief justice of the Kansas Supreme Court has halted the grand jury's unsupervised prying into their medical files" (Wichita Eagle, 2/6). Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, said the court's decision is "extremely disappointing," adding, "There is no way to determine if the reasons for these late abortions were done within the narrow legal criteria without looking at the records themselves" (Manning, AP/Google.com, 2/5).

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