Robbie Thomas-Knight of Little Rock resigned from her position on the Arkansas Board of Health last month to protest the board’s October vote against abortion clinics.
“A legally operating business, licensed by the Board and the [Arkansas Department of Health], should not have to go through the expense of an appeal to a circuit court to get a fair hearing,” Thomas-Knight said in her Dec. 27 letter to the Arkansas Board of Health directors.
Thomas-Knight, who was appointed to the board in 2014, said she admires “much of the work that the ADH does, but I find myself at odds with the process and the role of the Board.”
Thomas-Knight, a clinical psychologist and consumer representative on the board, said the board approved sanctions placed on providers because they “followed the medical custom of charging for services at the time of the services were provided,” she wrote. “The decision and the overall agenda had little to do with the quality of care, but appeared to be motivated by punishment of the facility for the legal services they provided.”
But Dr. Nathaniel Smith, director of the Arkansas Department of Health, told Whispers last week that there was a misunderstanding. During the October meeting, Thomas-Knight was calling in on the phone and may not have been able to follow what was going on, he said.
Smith said at issue were two state laws involving abortions. The first law says that a woman seeking an abortion has to have an ultrasound and then wait 48 hours before she makes a decision.
Then there’s a law that says clinics can’t charge women for an abortion or abortion-related services before the 48-hour period expires.
Smith said a Department of Health investigation found the clinics were charging for the ultrasound, but not the abortion, before the end of the 48 hours, which was a violation.
He said the clinics had an issue with the law, “not with our investigation or the findings of our investigation.”
But the 24-member board can’t “provide a legal remedy,” he said. The only way to get the legal cure was to appeal to the circuit court. “And the only way they could appeal to the circuit court was to exhaust the administrative procedure, which meant that the Board of Health had to affirm the department’s findings in this case,” he said.
Thomas-Knight objected and said in her letter that usually a subcommittee reviews the information and makes a recommendation to the board.
During the meeting, an attorney for the department said that normally there would be a committee to do the fact finding. But in this case, the facts weren’t in dispute, the attorney said.
The board voted to uphold the findings of the Department of Health.
“I voted Nay,” Thomas-Knight said in her letter.
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