LeRoy Carhart Will Start Late-Term Abortions in Maryland Soon

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Nov 30, 2010   |   1:12PM   |   Germantown, MD

Late-term abortion practitioner LeRoy Carhart has been keeping the pro-life movement on edge for months about potential plans to open new late-term abortion businesses in Iowa and Maryland.

New information obtained by the pro-life group that served as one of the major watchdogs of late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller today unveiled new information showing Carhart has secured a location to do the abortions. Instead of opening a new abortion center, Carhart will move into another one.

Carhart, according to information officials with Operation Rescue presented LifeNews.com, will run his late-term abortion business after the closing of another facility formerly operated by Steven Chase Brigham. He plans to begin doing abortions at the facility on December 6.

“This is not an expansion of abortion, but a relocation of Carhart’s failing late-term abortion business in a desperate attempt to avoid financial ruin,” said Operation Rescue president Troy Newman.

Newman called Carhart’s move to Maryland “opportunistic” because he is taking over the abortion market Brigham cornered by Brigham until Maryland officials and state health departments in New Jersey and Pennsylvania began cracking down on him. Brigham is not licensed to do late-term abortions in Maryland, so he would begin the abortions at his office there and transport women to Maryland to complete the abortions.

Brigham, who is not licensed in Maryland, was operating an illegal late-term abortion scheme where he would start abortions late as 36 weeks at his Voorhees, New Jersey abortion center, where he is not licensed to do late-term abortions. Then, he would have the women drive themselves to his secret abortion clinic in Elkton, Maryland.

The Maryland Board of Physicians and Elkton police compiled documents unveiling the problems and later conducted a raid of his Maryland abortion facility. Authorities who raided Brigham’s abortion center discovered the remains of 35 late-term aborted babies in jars.

Like Brigham, Newman noted, Carhart has no hospital privileges in any state, including Maryland where he intends to engage in risky second and third trimester abortions at Germantown Reproductive Health Services.

Newman said Carhart may try to make the abortions appear safe by touting how GRHS is an affiliate of the National Abortion Federation, a national trade group for independent abortion centers run outside of the Planned Parenthood abortion system. But, he says many NAF centers and abortion practitioners have come under fire for avoiding state health and safety laws. One NAF abortion practitioner, convicted rapist Brian Finkel, is currently serving 34 years in an Arizona prison for raping dozens of his abortion patients.

“Being an NAF affiliate only increases our belief that conditions at the Germantown clinic are such that the lives and health of women seeking Carhart’s late-term abortion services would be placed at even greater risk than is usual for late-term abortions which are typically prone to complication,” he told LifeNews.com today.

Newman says his group will work with local pro-life advocates to “employ peaceful, legal means to halt Carhart’s plans to do late-term abortions in Germantown.”

Pro-life groups also exposed how Brigham led a car caravan of women from his the abortion center to his Maryland one after one of the patients was critically injured during the abortion at his Pennsylvania abortion business. According to newspaper reports, Brigham put the semiconscious, bleeding woman in the back of a rental car and drove her to a nearby hospital instead of calling for an ambulance and drawing attention to problems at his abortion center, American Women’s Services.

LifeNews.com Note: This story has been updated, removing references to Carhart running Brigham’s former abortion business. He will not, but will be doing his abortions at Germantown Reproductive Health Services.