Kansas Attorney General Six Served Subpoenas In Tiller Case

Main Category: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Also Included In: Abortion
Article Date: 10 Feb 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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Kansas Attorney General Stephen Six (D) said Wednesday that his office was served with two subpoenas from a Sedgwick County, Kan., grand jury investigating abortion provider George Tiller, owner of Women's Health Care Services, the AP/Kansas City Star reports. Six said the office received the subpoenas Tuesday. One subpoena seeks the records of 60 women from Tiller's clinic, according to Six. The other seeks copies of testimony provided to the attorney general's office by a doctor who provided a second opinion for some of Tiller's patients who obtained abortions after their 21st week of pregnancy (Hanna, AP/Kansas City Star, 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.

The Kansas Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked subpoena by the grand jury of 2,000 medical records of women who sought or obtained abortions after their 21st week of pregnancy at Tiller's clinic. 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 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. The Kansas 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 (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 2/6).

Six said his office is responding to the subpoena for testimony and "providing those materials after review." He added that for "medical records, we are evaluating what our response will be but are certainly informed by the Supreme Court order that dealt with the same records" (AP/Kansas City Star, 2/6).

Related Opinion Piece

At the "whim of a few radical organizations, the lives and choices of women are not just being questioned but impugned," Julie Burkhart, CEO of the Kansas abortion-rights group ProKanDo, writes in a Wichita Eagle opinion piece. Legislatures and courts "continually bend to the will of these organizations with hearings, bills and grand juries, indulging their insatiable appetite for records and 'proof,'" while "the pain and suffering" of the women involved seem to be of "little consequence," she adds.

Abortion is a "personal and very critical decision" that "belongs to families, to mothers and fathers, not to those who wish to scrutinize and trivialize their pain," Burkhart writes. She adds that she is "saddened" the country has come "to the point of questioning a woman's authority and ultimate knowledge" about "her body, her life and her family," concluding, "This brings us back to personal responsibility and the innate knowledge that women -- or anyone, for that matter -- have regarding their lives" (Burkhart, Wichita Eagle, 2/7).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

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