Celebrated abortionist draws fire after undercover film

Washington D.C., May 10, 2013 / 03:08 am

New footage by an undercover investigative group shows a prominent late-term abortionist joking about the abortion procedure and telling women not to seek emergency care if something were to go wrong.

"Dr. (LeRoy) Carhart's testimony is shocking and sickening," said Lila Rose, president of Live Action, the organization that conducted the undercover investigation.

In a statement released with the video, Rose criticized Carhart's comparison of a dead infant within a mother's womb to "putting meat in a crock pot," as well as references to the tools he uses to complete abortions as a "pickaxe" and "drill bit."

She also stated that "he outright lies when he claims that his patient, Jennifer Morbelli, died of complications in her pregnancy rather than from his abortion."

Carhart was one of four protagonists in the documentary "After Tiller," which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013 and has won numerous honors since its opening. The doctors highlighted in the film are the four remaining doctors in the United States that still perform third-trimester abortions.

In 2009, Dr. Carhart also won awards from Physicians for Reproductive Health and NARAL Pro-Choice America.

The doctor is shown in the latest of several videos recorded undercover by Live Action. Speaking to women at his clinic, Carhart minimizes the risks and potential side effects of abortion, despite statements to the contrary by the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Planned Parenthood.

He also claimed to the undercover investigators that he has never "had anybody leave there feeling worse than they came," and that he "never had to send anybody to the hospital."

Acknowledging that a woman died after an abortion at his clinic, he asserted that the death was due to "complications with the pregnancy, but not from the abortion."

However a Maryland medical examiner determined that the death of the woman in question, Jennifer Morbelli, was a direct result of a late-term abortion Dr. Carhart performed at his Maryland clinic. According to the Baltimore chief medical examiner's office, the 29-year-old school teacher died from "amniotic fluid embolism following termination of pregnancy" as well as widespread internal bleeding.

Carhart is currently under investigation for Morbelli's February 2013 death. Her death occurred six weeks before the second of Live Action's investigations.

The footage also reveals Carhart advising the women not to seek emergency care should they need urgent medical attention during the multi-day abortion process.

"You don't call 911," he tells them, advising them instead to "just get in the car" and drive themselves to the clinic should they need emergency care.

Information sheets given to patients at Carhart's Maryland clinic state that if patients "feel that something is wrong and you need to be seen do not go to the ER, call and we will meet you at the clinic."

Carhart splits his weeks between his Nebraska and Maryland clinics, and according to Maryland pro-life group "Defend Life," he was in Nebraska at the time of Morbelli's death.

Pro-life reports indicate that Morbelli and her family had tried repeatedly to contact the doctor when she began experiencing shortness of breath and chest pains following the abortion procedure. The family eventually took her to the hospital, and she died shortly afterwards.

Rose, whose organization is releasing a series of similarly undercover videos, cautioned that these problems are not rare, although they are often overlooked in the abortion business.

"Our investigation reveals that the horrors of the abortion industry leaves devastated two victims: the mother and the child," she said.