Maryland residents have good reasons to want to know who owns and operates the state’s abortion clinics. One of the most notorious late-term abortionists in the country, Steven Brigham, practiced there for years.
In 2011, Maryland prosecutors charged Brigham with murdering viable late-term babies at a secret abortion clinic; unfortunately, the charges were dropped because some said he had killed the unborn babies in New Jersey instead. The state also closed several of Brigham’s clinics in 2013 after discovering repeated health and safety violations that put women in danger, LifeNews reported.
However, a new high court ruling said Monday that Maryland state officials can keep secret the names of applicants for abortion clinic licenses, according to the Associated Press.
Andrew Glenn, Montgomery County director of the Maryland Coalition for Life, filed the lawsuit after he was denied the names under Maryland’s Public Information Act. Glenn said abortion clinic license applicants’ names would help protect women from abortionists with checkered safety records. Though Glenn did not mention Brigham by name, Brigham’s notorious reputation for injuring women and killing late-term babies fits the description.
However, the Maryland Court of Appeals argued in its ruling Monday that keeping abortion practitioners’ names secret will protect them from clinic violence, according to the report.
Follow LifeNews.com on Instagram for pro-life pictures and the latest pro-life news.
Erik Zimmerman, an attorney from the American Center for Law and Justice who represented Glenn, said he was disappointed, but the decision cannot be appealed.
Though the court justices said violence was their reason for allowing abortion clinic applicants to hide their names, they failed to consider how the ruling could perpetuate violence against women and unborn babies. For example, Brigham has had numerous run-ins with the law, even opening abortion clinics under different names to hide his involvement.
The U.S. Supreme Court justices called abortion a decision between an woman and her doctor in Roe v. Wade, but when courts allow abortion doctors to hide their identities, they restrict women’s right to know just who they are dealing with at the abortion clinic.
