A former New Mexico abortionist who was accused of contributing to the death of a female patient and her unborn baby told Maine lawmakers this week that late-term abortions are “life-saving health care.”
The Maine Wire reports Dr. Shannon L. Carr, an abortionist and OB-GYN from Bristol, testified Monday in support of a radical pro-abortion bill to legalize abortions up to birth in Maine.
Carr spoke to the state House Judiciary Committee as an expert witness for pro-abortion lawmakers. The bill being debated, LD 1619, would legalize abortions up to birth for any reason the abortionist deems “necessary” in Maine. Currently, abortions are legal up to 24 weeks.
The radical pro-abortion legislation has been met with strong public opposition. More than 2,200 pro-life advocates showed up Monday at the Statehouse to protest the bill. Nearly 700 testified against the bill while only 65, including Carr, testified in favor.
Carr told lawmakers that late-term abortions are “life-saving health care,” and many of her abortion patients feel grateful afterward, according to the report.
“When I’ve met with patients before, during, and after their later abortion processes, we’ve cried together, and shared in the profound sadness and confusion that can follow,” she said. “And rather than regret, my patients express heartfelt gratitude about having been able to get the care that they and their family so desperately need.”
ACTION ALERT: To oppose this radical pro-abortion legislation, please Contact Maine state lawmakers.
But at least one of Carr’s former abortion patients died after receiving that supposedly “life-saving health care.”
Just a few years ago, Carr worked at a late-term abortion facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico called Southwestern Women’s Options. Last year, the facility and a local hospital paid a $1.26 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit involving one of Carr’s former patients, Keisha Atkins. Carr was one of three abortionists named in the lawsuit.
In 2017, Atkins, 23, died shortly after her unborn baby was aborted at the abortion facility; she was six months pregnant. Her lawyers said she died of sepsis after the abortion facility gave her “inconsistent and dangerously addictive drugs for days” and delayed transporting her to a hospital.
During Carr’s deposition in the case, she admitted that there were no real health problems to justify Atkins’ late-term abortion, and the “health risks” that she listed on Atkins’ medical records were just speculation.
Carr’s testimony this week to House lawmakers also suggested she believes aborting unborn babies for basically any reason up to birth is justifiable.
Here’s more from the Maine Wire:
“Are you saying that an abortion of a perfectly healthy baby at 36-weeks is acceptable under this bill?” asked Rep. Rachael Henderson (R-Rumford).
“I didn’t say 36 weeks necessarily, but a later abortion — yeah. Depending upon again that consultation with that provider, um, their mental health professional, yeah,” said Carr.
“I am not to judge,” she said.
Killing unborn babies in abortions is not health care, and late-term abortions are dangerous for mothers as well as their babies. Tens of thousands of medical doctors confirm that it’s never medically necessary to kill a viable unborn baby to save the mother’s life. Instead, labor would be induced or a C-section performed to save the mother and then care would be provided to her premature child. Killing the baby first would only delay life-saving care to the mother.
Research about late-term abortions indicates that viable unborn babies are aborted for elective reasons in states where it’s legal.
A recent study from ANSIRH, a pro-abortion research group at the University of California, found women have third-trimester abortions for a number of reasons, including difficulty obtaining an abortion, the inability to afford an abortion earlier, failure to realize she was pregnant earlier, and medical problems with the unborn baby. None of the abortions in the study were because of medical problems with the mother, according to the report.
“The reasons people need third-trimester abortions are not so different from why people need abortions before the third trimester…” the researchers wrote. “[T]he circumstances that lead to someone needing a third-trimester abortion have overlaps with the pathways to abortion at other gestations.”
The Maine late-term abortion bill has the support of Gov. Janet Mills and the Democrat-controlled legislature.
ACTION ALERT: To oppose this radical pro-abortion legislation, please Contact Maine state lawmakers.
