6,000 Complaints Lodged Against Late-Term Abortionist LeRoy Carhart

Over 6,000 citizen complaints against late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart were delivered last Wednesday to the Maryland Board of Physicians by representatives of Students for Life of America following the death of 28-year old Jennifer Morbelli.

A formal complaint was filed on February 19^th by Operation Rescue, seeking the revocation of Carhart’s license in the death of Morbelli, who sought a late-term abortion at Carhart’s clinic in Germantown, Maryland. Morbelli was 33 weeks into her pregnancy with her pre-born daughter, Madison, who was diagnosed with a seizure disorder.

Following her abortion on February 6th, Carhart left Maryland and could not be reached by Morbelli’s family when her condition deteriorated later that evening. The next day, Morbelli was taken to Shady Grove Hospital where she eventually died from massive internal bleeding. The hospital staff were also unable to reach Carhart, which complicated and delayed both diagnosis of her condition and appropriate treatment.

Morbelli’s autopsy report has not been released to date.

When Students for Life of America initially delivered the thousands of citizen signatures to the Maryland Board of Physicians, the complaints were rejected, and the pro-life activists were turned away. On Wednesday, however, the boxes of complaints were finally accepted.

Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation, said:

We thank everyone who signed on to the complaint and helped us bring public pressure to bear on the Maryland Board of Physicians, but we need to keep the pressure up to ensure that Carhart is properly investigated and disciplined for Morbelli’s death. This Board has shown that it is willing to do the right thing, but only after the public demands it.

Carhart was involved in the death of another third-trimester abortion patient, Christin Gilbert, a young woman with Down Syndrome who reportedly became pregnant as a result of a rape in 2005. Carhart performed Gilbert’s abortion when he was employed by abortionist George Tiller at the Women’s Health Care Services in Wichita, Kansas.

Carhart allegedly gave Gilbert’s unborn child a fatal digoxin injection to the heart, then filled her cervix with laminaria, a type of seaweed that is used to expand the cervix.

According to Operation Rescue, the next morning Gilbert was taken into her family’s van, where she delivered her dead baby on the way to the abortion clinic.

When Gilbert arrived at the clinic, a “tear in the uterus” was reportedly sutured. Carhart allegedly administered the abortion drug RU 486 to Gilbert to ensure that the uterus was completely empty.

Gilbert’s condition worsened overnight. Returning to the abortion clinic once again, she was reportedly diagnosed with dehydration but was likely suffering from sepsis.

The following morning, Gilbert’s family again took their daughter, reportedly bleeding and unconscious, back to the Wichita clinic. According to the autopsy report, she became “unresponsive” and was pronounced dead later that day.

In 2009, four former employees of Carhart’s came forward to tell of unsafe and illegal practices at his Bellevue, Nebraska abortion clinic, including unsanitary conditions, missing narcotics, and illegal post viability abortions. The case against him, however, was dismissed.

More recently in 2011, Carhart was issued an advisory letter by the Maryland Board of Physicians after Operation Rescue complained that he lied on an application in order to obtain licensure in that state. The state board, however, would not make the advisory letter public.

“Unless authorities bring Carhart to justice, he will kill again,” Newman said. “We will continue to press forward with our demands for justice through the legal system until we are sure that Carhart can never again hurt another living soul and that the tragedy that befell Jennifer Morbelli and her daughter, Madison Leigh, will never happen again.”