K&R

Done and shared

Dear friends,

Thank you all for supporting women's human and civil rights.

The Kansas legislature is getting ready to send a really mindbogglingly stupid bill to our even more mindbogglingly stupid Gov. Sam #heblowsalot Brownback. This new legislation essentially gives carte blanche to doctors to behave in a fashion that would normally be considered malpractice, and therefore by definition, grossly negligent.

In Kansas, we have a medical board composed of over half Brownback appointees, most of whom are not physicians, who control the license status of all the physicians in the state. Only a handful of these physicians still provide abortion services. They will be forced to lie to patients about the breast cancer risk, which is completely bogus, while physicians will be given license to practice negligent medicine by the same people who claim that I am negligent, even that I endangered their lives, because I didn't write enough personally identifying material in a chart. Never mind that these illegally seized charts somehow found their way into the hands of Bill O'Reilly, who then quoted from them on his show.

Apparently, in Kansas anyway, having your uncle's baby at the age of 10 and small for your age, is NOT a danger to your health, but having a medical chart sans signature on every page, IS??

Apparently, in Kansas, doctors can lie to their patients, and in fact are encouraged to, even if it could lead to their death.

Apparently, in Kansas, seizing a patient's medical records without due process is ignored, but trying to protect the private information contained therein, is punishable with a loss of professional license.

I really wish that this was an exaggeration, but at this point, Kansas is getting to be about as woman-friendly as Saudi Arabia. Thank you all for your support of women's rights and for spreading the word.

Solidarity!
Kris Neuhaus, MD