Kansas abortions down, state website & new laws touted

From an abortion total of 11,271 in 2006 to a reduction by 30% to 7,851 in 2011, the state health department (KDHE) figures show the fifth year of less abortion in Kansas.

Significantly fewer women actually complete a Kansas abortion after receiving informed consent materials as evidenced by the certifications submitted by clinics to KDHE. In 2010, there were 8,338 abortions after 8,615 women received initial paperwork inside clinics. In 2011, 8,033 certifications were filed, with only 7,851 women returning for an abortion.

UPDATE, March 31: The Kansas City Star reports that Peter Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, attributes “much of the reduction to the shooting death of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller, who specialized in late-term procedures.” Impossible! Tiller was killed in May 2009 and all abortions “missing due to his absence” were noted in 2009 and finalized in 2010, the first full year without his doors open.

In round numbers, 8,600 women walked into 3 Kansas clinics in 2010 and only 8,000 walked into the same 3 Kansas clinics in 2011 and that had nothing to do with Tiller, nor with increased contraception–another Brownlie assertion.

There may be a direct reason 600 fewer women even stepped inside Kansas abortion clinics– existence of the best state “Woman’s Right to Know” website in the nation, including

• comprehensive 4-D ultrasound video /audio providing real-time movies of the developing unborn child;
• clearly marked directory headings for free ultrasounds and help for challenging pregnancies;
• better written information describing the unborn child’s body systems and beating heart;
• a 24-hour hotline.

Chemical abortion using the RU486 protocol (mifepristone) dropped 26%, from a high of 2,202 in 2010 (26.4% of annual Kansas abortions) to 1,624 in 2011 (20.7% of annual Kansas abortions). The decrease may stem from

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Healthcare conscience bill slated for Kansas House vote

UPDATE, 5:30pm: The House passed this measure on voice vote, with a recorded vote to be taken tomorrow.

Today, the Kansas House is scheduled to take up the Healthcare Rights of Conscience, a measure strengthening protections for medical professionals and healthcare facilities that oppose abortion, sterilization and abortifacient (abortion-causing) drugs and devices.

• Over 8,300 abortions were performed in Kansas in 2010.
• Sterilization of females by “tubal ligations” number approximately 500 per year in Kansas hospitals, with an additional unknown number in single-day surgery centers.
• Millions of pills, patches, injections and devices not only act to prevent pregnancy, they silently eliminate tiny human beings (embryos) trying to implant in their mother’s wombs. By definition, that is post-fertilization abortifacient action.

Current state statutes allow physicians and hospitals to stay out of direct abortions and sterilizations, but those statutes were written before chemicals that cause abortion –intentionally or indirectly– were invented.

Today’s pharmacists who are ethically opposed to filling prescriptions for abortifacient drugs are in a terrible bind. The Healthcare Rights of Conscience would protect such Kansas pharmacists from job loss or their employer from a retaliatory civil lawsuit.

Ethical healthcare conflicts are escalating under a pro-death administration that has mandated free birth control and abortifacients in all health plans. This weekend, a reported 54,000 citizens attended “Stand Up for Religious Freedom” rallies  in 143 cities, to protest the mandate.

Infanticide has now been shockingly advocated in a mainstream periodical–

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Revoked KS abortionist “recycles” abortion patient files

Krishna Rajanna

Yesterday it was revealed that disgraced Kansas City abortionist Krishna Rajanna had thrown, into a school recycling bin, abortion patient records with extensive personal-identifying information while those files were still legally required to be retained and protected. (See KC Star here and here)

Rajanna was a failed surgical internist who came to do abortions at the Aid for Women Clinic in the inner-city area of Kansas City, Kansas. Following wage disputes with abortionist co-owners Malcolm Knarr and Sherman Zaremski, Rajanna opened his own “Affordable Abortions” competing clinic just three blocks away from Aid for Women.

In 2003, after former governor Kathleen Sebelius vetoed a bill to regulate abortion facilities, one of Rajanna’s staff secretly took photos of the clinic’s outrageous sanitation and safety violations. Open drug syringes and fetal parts were stored in the staff lunch refrigerator. Patient records were in open boxes on the floor in the kitchen. Two police officers, who were called to the clinic for a robbery report, refused to sit in the roach-infested clinic. (See photos here and related posts here, here and here.)

The local District Attorney could not get the state Board of Healing Arts to inspect the clinic premises, even though the Board had already privately issued disciplinary sanctions against Rajanna,

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Federal “Coats” law trumps bogus accreditation threat to KU

In 1996, every state acquired federal protection from retribution for not forcing their medical students to participate in abortion.

The applicable federal law is the Coats amendment, voted for by both Kansas’ U.S. Senators at the time, Nancy Kassebaum and Bob Dole.

Coats reads, “In determining whether to grant a legal status to a health care entity (including a license or certificate), or to provide such entity with financial assistance, services or other benefits, the Federal Government, or any State or local government that receives Federal financial assistance, shall

deem accredited any postgraduate physician training program that would be accredited but for the accrediting agency’s reliance upon an accreditation standards that requires an entity to perform an induced abortion or require, provide, or refer for training in the performance of induced abortions, or make arrangements for such training, regardless of whether such standard provides exceptions or exemptions.”

In other words, there is no possible accreditation threat to the medical center of the University of Kansas (KUMC) from section 2 of the Pro-life Protections act (HB 2598)– and now in the state budget

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KU ob/gyn doctors don’t require elective abortion training

There is no reason that Kansas should succumb to the desire of the University of Kansas (KU) to continue decades of facilitating, promoting and paying for abortion training in their post-graduate residency program.

Kansans for Life files show that 13 of 24 Kansas abortionists (current & past) were KU medical center grads, taught at KU, or both.

The policy (see earlier post) of the national accreditation agency, ACGME, is being waved at lawmakers as if it absolutely demands abortion training.  But a careful examination shows it merely requires that accredited ob/gyn residency programs provide training in abortion complications and not impede (or discriminate against) residents who seek abortion training separately ‘on their own time and own dime.’

This is solely a negative requirement— it does not require Kansas to help them do so, much less to pay for it. And thus, Kansas House Bill 2598 poses no threat to accreditation. And even if it were a threat, state sovereignty determines standards for medical training and practice– not ACGME. For 16 years, ACGME has tried to bully medical schools into helping recruit physicians to offset the continuing reduction in numbers of abortionists.

Furthermore, HB 2598 would prohibit state entities (including KU residents that are insured as state employees) from performing abortions EXCEPT those necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant woman (see section 6). HB 2598 is certainly not endangering pregnant women who face life-threatening situations. All ob/gyns are trained to handle all emergencies in educational settings and hospitals without having to participate in elective abortion. For example:

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Kansas N.O.W. wrong on KU accreditation & pro-life bill

Kansas N.O.W. lobbyist Kari Rinker, is fanning opposition (here and here) to the Pro-Life Protections Act, HB 2598, but she is wrong that the bill will cost accreditation for the University of Kansas (KU), and she’s wrong about ob/gyn physician education.

1998 Kansas law already bans abortions at KU—but KU continued abortion training, merely moving it offsite. (read previous post)

One provision of HB 2598 would forbid abortion performance by state entities (and by state student-physicians in training) –language that mirrors what Arizona adopted in 2011 (KSA 76-3308 (i)) KU has not issued a public demand to keep abortion training, other than emails to legislators from its lobbyist,

incorrectly threatening that a lack of abortion participation would cause KU to lose accreditation by ACGME (American Council on Graduate Medical Education).

However, ACGME—by its own rules– exempts not only individuals from performing abortions for religious /moral objections to performing abortions, but also exempts education programs that are under “legal” restrictions (see article IV. A. 2 d, on pg. 13 here). That is why Arizona retains its accreditation while banning abortion training.

Authentic training required for ob/gyn physicians includes pregnancy management, evacuation of the womb and “learning about abortion procedures without doing them,” as bill-author Rep. Lance Kinzer (R-Olathe) correctly told

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Time to end University of Kansas abortion training

HB 2598, the Pro-Life Protections Act, contains several provisions reflecting the state’s right not to prop up abortion businesses with income tax advantages, and not to require abortion training for students at state-funded universities.

While the bill awaits a vote from the House Federal-State Affairs committee, a lobbyist for the University of Kansas (KU) has alerted state representatives that KU needs a specific exemption from HB 2598 to continue abortion training for their ob/gyn physician residents.  The lobbyist writes that, without the exemption, national accreditation from ACGME (the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) will be pulled — but no clear evidence of this has been produced.

KU did not testify at the bill hearing; neither is there evidence that KU contacted ACGME about the situation in light of the fact that Arizona last year passed a clear ban (see section c here) on using public monies for abortion training — without loss of accreditation for their state post-graduate ob/gyn program. (check http://www.acgme.org/adspublic/, choose “accredited programs,” choose specialty (obgyn) and choose state to see accredited programs).

Furthermore, the legislative permission for establishing the KU Hospital Authority rested on ending abortions at KU– which KU resisted in 1997, and conceded in 1998.  Now it appears they are not following lawmakers’ intent, and only moved the abortion training off of state property.

1. Federal law protects funding for medical education that objects to abortion participation– regardless of ACGME accreditation.
2. There is no professional reason that ob/gyn resident physicians have to learn how to destroy unborn children in order to achieve competency in pregnancy management, stillbirth evacuation or treating abortion complications.

ACGME already knows abortion training is not needed, because they “allow” individual graduate students to “opt out” of doing abortions

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Innovators encourage Kansas adult stem cell research

(from left) Drs. Omar Aljitawi, Richard Burt, Dana Winegarner, David Prentice, with Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook & Rep. Brenda Landwehr

The Kansas House Health & Human Services committee was warned on Monday that their state is ‘missing-in-action’ when it comes to life-saving and life-changing adult stem cell medicine.

Because of that concern, committee chair, Rep. Brenda Landwehr (R-Wichita), and fellow pro-lifer, Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook (R-Shawnee) scheduled this presentation by international adult-stem cell advocate and cell-biologist, David Prentice, Ph.D., along with a trio of noted physician/ researchers:

• Richard Burt, M.D., from Northwestern University Hospital in Illinois– a leading researcher in stem-cell immunotherapy;
• Omar Aljitawi, M.D., assistant professor at the Blood & Marrow transplant center at Kansas University’s Medical Center; and
• Dana Winegarner, D.O., a neurologist from the MidAmerica Neuroscience center in the Kansas City area.

The speakers’ united message was that both the public and physicians remain unaware that adult stem cells are already being used clinically to treat many diseases in human patients around the world. Dr. Prentice gave an overview of

innovative stem cell applications, including the “spray gun” that allows a burn victim’s own cells to be altered and then sprayed over the damaged area for skin regeneration.

Dr. Prentice reminded the committee that a 2010 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association noted that adult stem cell transplants have become “the standard of care for many patients”

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Former & wannabe abortionists their own worst enemy

Mila Means (LATimes photo)

Some recent pro-abortion media entries (see here and here), along with a piece in today’s Los Angeles Times, bemoan the alleged “hounding” of Mila Means, a would-be Kansas abortionist, and Kris Neuhaus, an ex-abortionist facing the imminent loss of her medical license. Collectively, the accounts blame a pro-life governor and pro-life bills (which are conveniently mischaracterized), in the process ignoring that both women have a disciplinary history with the state Healing Arts Board.

According to Times reporter Jenny Deam, in the summer of 2010, “Means began going each weekend to Kansas City, Kan., to learn first trimester abortion procedure.”  For $20,000 she bought out the equipment of another abortionist “which cut deeply into her practice’s meager budget.” So, according to the story, why is Means not doing abortions? “It’s the lawmakers who now prove to be her most daunting opponent,” Deam writes. “She says she doesn’t dare go forward now. So she waits.”

Really? No.

In fact, there is no practical barrier to opening an abortion business in Kansas. State health department rules for abortion clinics developed in 2011–while attained by Planned Parenthood– were successfully enjoined

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