LIFE DIGEST: Pro-lifers protest late-term abortionist in Maryland
- Dec 7, 2010 -
Late-term abortion doctor LeRoy Carhart drew from 200 to 300 pro-life demonstrators Dec. 6, the first day he performed the lethal procedures at a Maryland clinic. The crowd estimate came from The Washington Post.
Carhart moved part of his practice to Germantown Reproductive Health Services in Germantown, Md., after a new Nebraska law banning abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy took effect. He had long performed abortions at his clinic in Bellevue, Neb., and is possibly the best known, late-term abortion doctor in the country.
Also in this edition: House OKs pro-life language in female veterans bill, Scalia reasserts no right to abortion in Constitution, Scotland convincingly defeats assisted-suicide bill, and Maryland revokes license of abortion doctor
In November, Carhart said he planned to begin providing late-term abortions at new clinics in the Washington, D.C., area and Council Bluffs, Iowa. He also said he intended to expand an abortion facility in Indianapolis, Ind.
He did not open a new clinic in the Washington, D.C., region, however, but took his abortion business to a clinic in the capital’s suburbs where the procedure already was being performed.
Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said pro-lifers would continue to demonstrate outside the Germantown clinic while Carhart performs abortions there. He said they would work to make sure Maryland does not become “the late-term abortion capital of America.”
House OKs pro-life language in female veterans bill
Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J., successfully led an effort to ensure a bill of rights for female military veterans cannot be understood to establish a right to abortion.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Women Veterans Bill of Rights (H.R. 5953) by voice vote Nov. 30. The vote came after language was inserted at Smith’s request to clarify the bill would not be construed to include a right to such services as abortion, abortion counseling and in vitro fertilization.
Smith told the House he was “especially pleased” the measure “makes absolutely clear that abortion is not health care under this bill and so-called abortion rights are not implied by any of the rights specified in the legislation.”
“Because abortion methods dismember, decapitate, crush, poison, starve to death and induce premature labor, pro-life members of Congress and, according to every reputable poll, significant majorities of Americans want no complicity whatsoever in this violence,” said Smith, widely considered the leading pro-life advocate in Congress.
Scalia reasserts no right to abortion in Constitution
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently restated his belief the Constitution does not contain a right to abortion.
Speaking Nov. 19 at the University of Richmond, Scalia said the high court has given too broad of an interpretation to the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.
“The due process clause has been distorted so it’s no longer a guarantee of process but a guarantee of liberty,” he said, according to the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch. “But some of the liberties the Supreme Court has found to be protected by that word – liberty – nobody thought constituted a liberty when the 14th Amendment was adopted. Homosexual sodomy? It was criminal in all the states. Abortion? It was criminal in all the states.”
Scalia, 74, espouses “original intent” as his judicial philosophy, meaning he seeks to determine the intention of the Constitution’s framers.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1973 there was a right to abortion based on the Constitution. That 7-2 decision, Roe v. Wade, plus a companion opinion, Doe v. Bolton, effectively gave a woman a right to have an abortion for any reason at any stage during her pregnancy.
Scotland convincingly defeats assisted-suicide bill
Scotland’s Parliament soundly defeated legislation that would have legalized physician-assisted suicide. The Dec. 1 vote was 85-16 in opposition.
The End of Life Assistance Bill would have permitted people at least 16 years of age to seek help in committing suicide if they are either terminally ill or physically incapacitated permanently and unable to live independently. To be eligible, the people must find their lives are “intolerable.”
Gordon Macdonald of Care Not Killing Alliance, which opposed the measure, called the vote “a victory for the most vulnerable in our community. The detailed scrutiny and exhaustive investigation that this bill has had over many months and the sheer magnitude of its defeat should settle this issue in Scotland for a generation.”
”The right to die can so easily become the duty to die,” Macdonald said in a written statement. “Vulnerable people who are sick, elderly or disabled can so easily feel pressure, whether real or imagined, to end their lives so as not to be a burden on others.”
Maryland revokes license of abortion doctor
The Maryland Board of Physicians permanently revoked the medical license of abortion doctor George Shepard Jr., the Cherry Hill (N.J.) Courier-Post reported Dec. 3. The action came after Shepard agreed to the penalty as part of a consent order.
The Maryland panel had suspended Shepard’s license three months earlier after it found he was guilty of unprofessional conduct and with aiding abortion clinic operator Steve Brigham in defying state credentialing mandates. Shepard, 88, served as part-time medical director of Brigham’s Maryland clinics.
The Maryland board ordered Brigham, who operates 15 abortion clinics in four states and is unlicensed to practice medicine in Maryland, to stop performing abortions in the state.
The Delaware Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline suspended Shepard’s license in its state Oct. 1.
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