Late-Term Abortion Practitioner Carhart Faces Hundreds of Pro-Lifers

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Dec 6, 2010   |   8:44PM   |   Germantown, MD

Hundreds of pro-life people turned out for a protest and press conference marking the first day of late abortions done by Nebraska-based abortion practitioner Leroy Carhart in Maryland.

Despite the bitter cold and blustery winds, they vowed not to rest until Carhart leaves Germantown and the state of Maryland.

So many people showed up that local police officials cordoned off an area for the pro-life advocates and set up a command post near the Reproductive Health Services Clinic in case any incidents occurred between peaceful pro-life advocates and pro-abortion counterprotestors.

Neither Carhart nor any representative of the abortion center made a public statement on Monday about his starting abortions there, which was supposed to begin today.

A handful of pro-abortion activists waited to help any women seeking abortions but, by noon, no one had asked for help finding the abortion center.

Kristan Hawkins, director of Students for Life, joined clergy and national pro-life representatives to oppose him expanding his late-term abortion business by starting abortions at a local center that hired him.

“It is so important that Americans stand for Life today as LeRoy Carhart begins his late term abortion career in Maryland,” she said. “An overwhelming majority of Americans opposes late-term abortions, period. Snuffing out the life of a precious 9-month child in the womb is not choice.”

Family Research Council’s Senior Fellow for Policy Studies Peter Sprigg, a resident of Germantown, also participated in the news conference.

“I am proud to stand here with my friends, neighbors and pro-life colleagues and allies to condemn the grisly work that Dr. LeRoy Carhart has begun in this facility today,” he said.

“Carhart is one of the most notorious abortionists in the country. His name was on the Supreme Court case in which he attempted, unsuccessfully, to defend the brutal practice of partial-birth abortion, in which a living child is almost fully delivered before being killed by puncturing his or her skull and sucking out his or her brains,” he continued.

He added, “Although Congress put an end to the practice of partial-birth abortion, Carhart continues to kill unborn children past 21 weeks of gestation – at a time when evidence suggests that babies can both feel pain and survive outside the womb.”

Carhart runs an abortion business in Nebraska that includes second-term abortions, but he looked for someplace else to do them following the passage of a fetal pain law that bans abortions after 20 weeks based on the pain unborn children experience.

The abortion center, located in a suburb of the nation’s capital, hired Carhart to do second-trimester abortions.