George Tiller named Operation Rescue West. Kansas law prohibits abortions after the beginning of fetal viability unless two doctors certify that continuing the pregnancy would cause the woman "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function". The two consulting doctors must not be "financially affiliated" with the doctor doing the abortion. Tiller was charged with 19 misdemeanors for allegedly consulting a second physician in late-term abortion cases during 2003 who was not truly "unaffiliated". The case became a cause célèbre for both supporters and opponents of legal abortion. WorldNet Daily Columnist Jack Cashill compared the trial to the Nuremberg Trials of
George Tiller Nazi war criminals, while Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Professor Jacob Appel described Tiller as "a genuine hero who ranks alongside Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr. in the pantheon of defenders of human liberty". The trial took place in March 2009, with the jury finding Tiller not guilty on all charges on March 27, approximately two months before his death. Dr. Tiller struggled with substance abuse, which came to a head in 1984 when he was arrested for driving under the influence. He sought treatment, overcame his difficulties, and later served on the Kansas Medical