Practitioner Bruce Steir Who Killed Woman in Botched Abortion Writes Book
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 13, 2008
Riverside, CA (LifeNews.com) — A former abortion practitioner who was convicted of killing a woman in a botched legal abortion has written a new book telling his life story. California abortion practitioner Bruce Steir was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2000 after botching an abortion and killing a woman.
Steir only served 114 days before being released on parole.
Steir had perforated the uterus of the mother, 27-year-old Sharon Hamptlon, while performing an abortion of her 20-week-old unborn child.
Hamptlon bled to death in front of her 3-year-old son while being driven home by her mother after the abortion.
Having been on probation with the medical board since 1988, Steir surrendered his license to practice medicine four months after Hamptlon’s death.
Steir describes the abortion and his experience behind bars in his new book, "Jailhouse Journal of an OB/GYN" published by AuthorHouse.
About the botched abortion and Hamptlon’s death, he writes that the County Medical Examiner "referred to the death as accidental," but described how Riverside County prosecutors later charged him with second-degree murder.
Steir writes that the criminal case drained his savings and he talks about how the judge sentenced him to Riverside County Jail for a year, with six months suspended for 1000 hours of community service.
The abortion practitioner writes that he "attended medical school twenty-three years before Roe vs. Wade became the law of the land."
"The only position that I had about abortion back then was that my sister should have been allowed to have the choice to have a safe, legal abortion instead of having to go through the heartbreak of giving birth and then giving her baby up for adoption to another family," Steir explains.
Ultimately, he still believes in abortion and says "an existing pregnancy that is not wanted is an accident or a mistake."
In a crass and dehumanizing manner, he concludes, "It doesn’t really matter which it is. People make mistakes and as long as they do there will be erasers on pencils and delete keys on keyboards."
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