Kansas abortion doctor ordered to show records

One of the nation's few late-term abortion doctors was ordered Wednesday to turn over about 2,000 patient medical records to a Kansas grand jury investigating his practice.

Abortion opponents hope the records will lead to further criminal charges against Dr. George Tiller, who is facing 19 misdemeanor counts stemming from late-second and third-trimester abortions at his clinic in Wichita.

Tiller's lawyers said he scrupulously follows the law. They plan to ask the Kansas Supreme Court to overturn a state district court judge's ruling that Tiller begin handing over files as early as today.

"It's an unprecedented encroachment upon a woman's right to privacy," attorney Dan Monnat said.

Monnat was joined in court by a lawyer from the Center for Reproductive Rights, who filed affidavits from three patients demanding that their medical records remain private.

Tiller spent three years battling a subpoena for a much smaller group of medical records sought by former Attorney General Phill Kline, an opponent of legal abortion. The Kansas Supreme Court eventually forced Tiller to hand over 60 records on the condition that an independent lawyer review them to redact names, addresses and other information not relevant to the criminal inquiry.

After Kline was voted out of office, his successor — a supporter of abortion rights — charged Tiller with the misdemeanors.

In that case, which has not gone to trial, Tiller is accused of aborting viable fetuses without consulting an independent physician as required by state law. He did consult a second doctor, but the prosecution alleges that she was not independent because all her income came from her occasional work with Tiller.

The grand jury investigating possible additional charges against Tiller is demanding the medical records of every patient who sought or obtained an abortion after her 21st week of pregnancy, or midway through the second trimester. The panel wants records dating to July 1, 2003.

The grand jury has also subpoenaed the names and addresses of Tiller's employees and of physicians who have worked with him.

Under Kansas law, aborting a viable fetus is legal 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 has repeatedly made clear that the woman's mental and physical health must be taken into account.

Tiller has said his late-term patients — some well into their third trimester — include girls as young as 10, drug addicts and victims of domestic violence.