Editor’s Note: This letter is in response to [“True/False ‘After Tiller’ subject faces medical investigation”](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2013/3/15/truefalse-after-tiller-subject-faces-medical-inves/).
Just to give you a sense of your source, Cheryl Sullenger is not only the senior policy advisor of Operation Rescue, “an anti-abortion Christian activist organization,” she is also a felon. She pled guilty in 1988 to conspiring to blow up the Alvarado Medical Center abortion clinic with a gasoline bomb and served two years in U.S. federal prison. She also had [some contact with Scott Roeder](http://www.pitch.com/plog/archives/2009/06/01/phone-number-found-inside-car-of-man-suspected-of-killing-george-tiller-belongs-to-woman-who-plotted-1988-clinic-bombing) before Roeder assassinated Dr. George Tiller.
She is absolutely correct that the Maryland Board of Physicians is investigating Dr. LeRoy Carhart. She knows because it is her own organization that filed the complaint. Of course, Operation Rescue wants to ensure that Dr. Carhart gets investigated since every complaint guarantees that he will have hours of work and huge legal bills to contend with.
It is one of their favorite tactics to file as many complaints as they possibly can with whatever state medical board they can. They say it’s to “ensure patient safety,” but it sure looks like “to hassle doctors who do abortions.” They have filed multiple complaints against our clinic, Southwestern Women’s Options in Albuquerque, based not on any knowledge of the cases but based on 911 calls which were public record. In most cases, they didn’t even know the patients’ names. None of these has resulted in any findings of negligence or poor care against the doctors by the Board.
In one case, the [Operation Rescue site published](http://www.operationrescue.org/archives/new-docs-reveal-horrific-details-of-botched-35-week-abortion-gross-negligence-in-nm-disciplinary-case/) “Horrific Details of Botched 35-Week Abortion, Gross Negligence in NM Disciplinary Case,” saying that “transcripts of a Medical Board disciplinary hearing held in November, 2012, indicate that late-term abortionist… committed four acts of gross negligence…” when actually the Board exonerated the doctor of any negligence, and it was found that every aspect of her care had been appropriate.
I worked for Dr. Tiller in Wichita before he was assassinated. In 2008, one of our nurses had a personal medical emergency (she was not pregnant and had not been pregnant for over 20 years) and we sent her to the hospital. Operation Rescue [reported with glee](http://www.operationrescue.org/page/7/?s=transport+wichita), “Abortionist Susan Robinson…” (That’s me.) “…Was on the schedule and may have been involved in the botched abortion.”
You have to give them points for imagination.
I am one of the four doctors featured in “After Tiller.” The real point of that film is to show how complex the subject of later abortion is. Women can and do struggle mentally, emotionally and spiritually with complex ethical questions and they come to the decisions that they believe are best for their families and their unique circumstances.
There’s [an interesting comment](http://www.columbiatribune.com/opinion/oped/abortion-legislation-pre-empts-parents-call/article_037187a0-8865-11e2-a0d5-10604b9f6eda.html) by Tracy Weitz in a Columbia Tribune op-ed from March 10 about “Missouri HB 386, the “Abortion Ban for Sex Selection and Genetic Abnormalities Act of 2013.”
She says, “I’m astounded by how much lawmakers care about restricting one decision (abortion), with no attention to the other options. The bill contains no expansion in supports for families who have children with disabilities. It is silent on in-home support services, special education and paid family medical leave. Most egregious, Missouri is poised to make the decision not to expand access to Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act — the very program necessary to support families the ban affects.”
So, hey, Missourians, show me how it can be that lawmakers can know so much about individual families and who and how they should parent, but know so little about what kind of support those families need. And for those families where these clever lawmakers get it totally wrong, I hope New Mexico is still able to help. It’s a long drive.
Wichita was closer, but the “pro-lifers” assassinated the doctor there.
Sincerely,
Susan C. Robinson MD, FACOG
Southwestern Women’s Options
522 Lomas Blvd NE
Albuquerque, NM 87102
