Pro-Life Groups Want Ban Enforced at New Jersey Partial-Birth Abortion Ctr 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 19, 2007
Englewood, NJ (LifeNews.com) — Now that the Supreme Court has upheld a national ban on the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure, pro-life groups are turning their attention to enforcement of it. They’re starting in New Jersey at an abortion center that likely does more partial-birth abortions than anywhere in the country.
Several pro-life groups, including New Jersey Right to Life, the Legal Center for Defense of Life and Crossing Over Ministry held a press conference yesterday outside the Metropolitan Medical Associates abortion business.
In September 1996, Metropolitan admitted to doing 1,500 partial birth abortions a year, most on healthy mothers of healthy babies.
"The practical consequences of today’s decision take place right here in Englewood," Richard Collier, president of the pro-life law firm, told LifeNews.com in a statement.
"We’re here to call on U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie to enforce the statute against Metropolitan if it continues to do partial-birth abortions," he said.
Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, said her group was pleased that the high court upheld the partial-birth abortion ban but "We want to make sure that the ban will be enforced."
Hector Ferrer, of Crossing over Ministry, agreed and told LifeNews.com that he hopes ""this will be the beginning of the end of the infanticide that is occurring in our own backyard."
Metropolitan has come under fire over the last few months because it’s the abortion business where a botched abortion went so badly that a young woman nearly died as a result. The state shut it down for several weeks but it reopened last month after supposedly correcting the health and safety problems it had. state2179.html
State health officials closed the abortion business after a complaint was filed by Newark Beth Israel Medical center reporting that a 20 year-old woman nearly died from a botched abortion done there.
The abortion center failed a followup inspection two weeks and authorities released information to a local newspaper recently on the shoddy conditions there.
New Jersey Right to Life led the effort to pass a statewide partial-birth abortion ban in New Jersey in 1997. The legislature eventually overrode a veto by then-Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.
Within hours of the Legislature’s override of Governor Whitman’s veto, Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey and three abortion practitioners filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Trenton to block the law pending a trial.
Governor Whitman refused to allow her Attorney General Peter Verniero to defend the law.
As a result, the NJ Legislature hired Legal Center for Defense of Life Attorney Richard Collier to defend the law on behalf the state.
The law was struck down by a U.S. District Court and was subsequently appealed by the NJ Legislature to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals where it was ruled unconstitutional following the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court Decision, Stenberg v. Carhart.
