Carhart’s Late-Term Abortion Business Reopened After Operating Without Permit

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Mar 16, 2009   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Carhart’s Late-Term Abortion Business Reopened After Operating Without Permit

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 16
, 2009

Bellevue, NE (LifeNews.com) — The late-term abortion business LeRoy Carhart runs is open again following a mix-up that saw city officials close it down. Carhart re-opened his abortion business following damage in an accidental fire, but it didn’t stay open long because repairs on his abortion center hadn’t passed a city inspection.

Following an inspection, the city of Bellevue, outside Omaha, would have had to have issued an occupancy permit for him to reopen.

Last week, city officials went by Carhart’s abortion center Monday afternoon to close it down, and Carhart appeared to reopen on Wednesday.

Mary Lou Schwope, permit technician for the City of Bellevue, said Carhart had no certificate of occupancy to open the Saturday before last.

She said Steve Carmichael, Bellevue’s chief building inspector, closed Carhart’s abortion business on Monday, conducted the inspection and gave him the permit on Tuesday and that Carhart re-opened on Wednesday.

Carhart admitted to the Bellevue Leader newspaper that he operated without a permit for three days.

"We saw all our patients on Saturday, Sunday and Monday," he said.

He also claimed city officials never closed his abortion facility down.

“Maybe in City Hall, the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing,” Carhart said. “They never closed us down on Monday."

Either way, Carhart was apparently illegally operating in his fire-damaged abortion center, known as the Abortion and Contraception Clinic of Nebraska.

Larry Donlan, the director of a local pro-life group known as Rescue the Heartland, who informed the city Carhart was open for business, describes the exterior of the building as dilapidated and says it is surrounded by rusted-out vehicles and other junk.

He says women who get abortions are at risk because Carhart is relying on a generator for power with an electrical cord running outside from the generator to the abortion facility to provide electricity. Should it fail, women could be in medical danger.

Operation Rescue, which has been working with Donlan to expose the problems at Carhart’s abortion clinic, chimed in on the latest news.

The pro-life group’s president, Troy Newman, said Carhart’s flouting of building safety codes is just one example of a widespread mindset amongst abortion practitioners that they are somehow above the law. This mindset is endangering the lives of women, he tells LifeNews.com.

"Can you even imagine what would have happened if that generator had run out of gas? This just goes to show how much contempt Carhart has for the law and for women," Newman said.

"The law is nothing more than words on a paper to him. His belligerent disregard for the law is only surpassed by his disregard for human life," Newman adds.

Newman says the incident goes to show that pro-life advocates must do more to monitor abortion businesses in their back yard.

Donlan says local pro-life advocates are reaching out with help to women who go to Carhart’s abortion center and reported one woman on Saturday changed her mind about her scheduled abortion thanks to their help.

Last month, the electrician working on Carhart’s fire repairs quit on moral grounds after he was informed by pro-lifers that he was enabling Carhart to continue to do abortions.

The Nebraska-based center is one of the few in the nation to do late-term abortions and Carhart’s name became famous when the Supreme Court ruled for him against a partial-birth abortion ban.

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