Abortion Doc Caught Offering Illegal Late-Term Abortions

State   |   Andy Moore   |   Aug 20, 2012   |   12:58PM   |   Orlando, FL

On August 11, post-abortive pro-life advocate Kelly Clinger wrote an article that included a picture of a woman pregnant with 20 week old twins at the Orlando Women’s Center abortion business in Florida. The woman went inside to have her twin babies killed by abortion. Abortionist James Pendergraft owns the Orlando Women’s Center as well as four other abortion businesses.

Pendergraft also runs the website, LateTermAbortion.net. This site contains information on how a person can set up a late-term abortion. Pendergraft will agree to commit an abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, only requiring justification from a medical professional.

It is important to note that Pendergraft is currently prevented from practicing medicine in Maryland while he serves his fourth career suspension. Pendergraft has no active medical license in any other state. Therefore any abortion he commits is necessarily illegal.

Late-term abortions are most often considered to be reserved for extreme cases such as when a mother’s life is in danger. However the truth is, as Kelly pointed out, that late-term abortion is legal in most states and can be for reasons as basic as extreme emotional distress.

Following the national outrage over the late-term abortion of the twins, AbortionWiki determined to find out if Pendergraft would be willing to kill a baby 32 weeks in the womb, probably a completely viable baby that could survive if the mother went into premature labor.

AbortionWiki undercover investigator Susan Tyrell emailed Pendergraft using the contact address on the LateTermAbortion.net website, using the name “Sarah Maranci” and pretending that she was 32 weeks pregnant. She stated that her boyfriend and had an affair, beat her and then left. She wrote that she was suffering mental distress and didn’t think she could go on. Susan never stated that she was suicidal, but simply used dramatic language that implied that her life would be over if she had the baby:

Pendergraft promptly replied, stating that he would not be able to commit the abortion because there was no legal justification for it:

Susan replied, putting forward a case that her life was in fact threatened. She mentioned that she had seen a counselor and could provide records showing her distress (read email). Pendergraft responded to this email:

Susan scanned in and emailed Pendergraft the supposed letter from the counselor. In the letterhead for the letter, she had included a phone number for the counselor. In fact, this was her secondary number. The body of the letter is below (the letterhead was cut off by the scanner):

Pendergraft responded, asking for the phone number of the counselor and laying out the next steps which would allow the abortion to go ahead:

It should be noted that at no point in this process did Pendergraft verify any of the facts. Susan provided him with a number for a supposed “counselor,” who was not a medical doctor and who never claimed to be licensed. However Pendergraft did not check the authenticity of the document nor did he call to verify the counselor. We know this, because the number Susan provided was her own. If Pendergraft had in fact called the counselor, she would have received the call.

Maryland Right to Life provides a summary of Maryland’s late-term abortion law:

“Maryland law… allows abortions after viability if needed to protect the “health” of the mother. “Health” is defined very broadly, to include the “distress … associated with the unwanted child, … the problem of bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it, … the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood….”

As a side note, the facility that Pendergraft was unwilling to name in the above email operates out of Integrated OB/GYN Services, located at 7610 Pennsylvania Avenue, #305, in Forestville, Maryland.

Pendergraft clearly showed that his concern was with getting the money and destroying a “viable” life for $18,0000. At no point did he ask Susan if she had had any adoption counseling or considered giving her baby up for adoption; he never asked for medical report or any other evidence. The most that he did was ask her was if she had ever been pregnant before if she had any children and what types of deliveries they were.

Correspondence ended with Pendergraft’s last e-mail, which said that as soon as he received notification that the funds had been wired to his Florida bank account, he would be able to begin the procedure the following day (Friday 17 August).

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In conclusion, Pendergraft was prepared to commit the abortion – even though he is currently not licensed to do so – for the unsubstantiated reason that the mother thought “her life would be over” where she to go ahead and have the child.

Related Reading: In July, Operation Rescue conducted a very similar undercover investigation. Pendergraft’s response was the same. In this instance he was prepared to commit an abortion for the reason that the woman’s boyfriend was in jail.

LifeNews Note: Andy Moore is an American resident originally from New Zealand who runs the investigate web site Abortion Wiki.