Sting Operation Catches Illegal Maryland Late-Term Abortion Biz

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jul 12, 2012   |   3:45PM   |   Forestville, MD

A sting operation conducted by Operation Rescue has apparently discovered a Florida-based abortion practitioner running an illegal late-term abortion business in Maryland.

The pro-life group spent seven months engaging in an undercover investigation and today, OR revealed the details of a late-term abortion business headed by James S. Pendergraft IV of Florida, who has had his license suspended and run into trouble with the law numerous times. Pendergraft runs the abortion clinic with his Maryland accomplice, Harold O. Alexander, even though Pendergraft is not licensed to practice medicine in Maryland.

Beginning on November 8, 2011, Operation Rescue staff members, posing as potential late-term abortion customers, began recording a series of conversations with Pendergraft which document a suspicious bi-state abortion business aggressively advertised on the Internet as LateTermAbortion.net.

“Documentation that Pendergraft is operating a late-term abortion operation in Maryland confirms that state as the Late-term Abortion Capital of America,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation.

Newman added:  “Pendergraft joins the likes of New Jersey’s Steven Brigham and Nebraska’s LeRoy Carhart, who targeted Maryland for their late-term businesses because of the state’s reputation of allowing abortionists to operate without regulation or accountability, something we hope will be remedied by Maryland’s new clinic regulations that are set to go into effect on July 23.”

Newman said Pendergraft offers late-term abortions in the second and third trimesters.

“His business uniquely provides women with “intracardiac injections” that kill the pre-born babies prior to the abortion. The women are then sent back to their home states or countries where the abortions are completed by others. The dangers of this process are shockingly high and place the lives of women at unacceptable risk,” he explained.

In addition, OR caught Pendergraft contriving “mental health” justifications for the abortions. In one call, he said that stress over a boyfriend being in jail was a medical reason for a late-term abortion.

The pro-life group has seen results in its complaints filed with Maryland officers regarding Alexander, who has been charged with violations of the Maryland Medical Practice Act. The complaints list a number of shocking allegations that could cost him his medical license including a charge that he illegally shredded a medical record of a late-term abortion patient that was subpoenaed as a result of OR’s complaint.

Pendergraft’s complaint file remains open and late-term abortions dangerously continue at his Forestville clinic.

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“We are urging the Maryland Board of Physicians to immediately act to protest the public from Pendergraft’s dangerous late-term abortion operation in Maryland,” said Newman.