Kansas sanctions Missouri doctor over 13-year-old's abortion

TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas suspended a former Planned Parenthood physician-contractor’s state medical license for 90 days for failing to preserve a fetal tissue sample from a 13-year-old girl’s abortion so that it could be sent to authorities.

The State Board of Healing Arts concluded that Allen S. Palmer violated Kansas law during the December 2014 abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Kan. The suspension affects the St. Louis-area doctor’s ability to practice medicine in Kansas, but not elsewhere.

Kansas requires fetal tissue to be preserved when an abortion patient is younger than 14 for submission to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation or an approved lab. A document in the case said the girl said she had sex with a 19-year-old boyfriend; sex with anyone younger than 14 is considered rape under Kansas law.

“The potential injury from this violation is severe in that a failure to preserve and submit fetal tissue may hinder a criminal prosecution,” the board said in its order last week.

Read more: http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/20170919/kansas-sanctions-missouri-doctor-over-13-year-olds-abortion