Doctor Vows To Carry On Tiller's Work

Friend Of Slain Abortion Doc. Says He'll Perform Late-Term Abortions - If He Can Find A Clinic

(AP)  Physician LeRoy Carhart wants to continue providing third-term abortions after the brazen slaying of his friend and colleague George Tiller, but the Nebraska doctor doesn't have anywhere to perform them - and he's one of only a handful of providers who will.

Tiller's Wichita, Kan., clinic was shuttered Sunday after the 67-year-old physician was gunned down at his church. His family said Tuesday that they were unsure when it would reopen, posing a problem for Carhart, who wants to carry on his friend's mission.

Carhart, 67, is one of a handful of remaining doctors in the United States who perform third-trimester abortions, and it is uncertain if a new generation of providers will take over the cause. Schools and universities don't offer many programs to train physicians on how to perform the procedure, and Carhart said younger doctors who might be interested in stepping forward are afraid they or their families will be harmed.

Tiller's slaying underlined that fear. On Tuesday, Kansas authorities charged 51-year-old Scott Roeder, a staunch abortion opponent, with first-degree murder in Tiller's death.

"Dr. Tiller and I and all our friends know that tomorrow is never a given," Carhart told The Associated Press. "I think what we have to do is not let this loss of his life affect our goals in life, No. 1, and we need to do things so he's never forgotten."

Carhart twice has appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge bans on so-called partial-birth abortions. In 2000, the high court ruled for Carhart in striking down a Nebraska law because it lacked an exception to preserve a woman's health and encompassed a more common abortion method.

He filed a lawsuit in 2003 challenging the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. In 2007, the high court upheld the federal ban on the procedure, which generally was used to end pregnancies in the second and third trimester. Doctors called it "intact dilation and extraction," or D&X. Carhart said then that the ruling "opened the door to an all-out assault" on the 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade.

Carhart first met Tiller more than 20 years ago and began working at the Wichita clinic a decade ago. He said he regularly traveled to Kansas for a few days every third week. He only performs third-term abortions at Tiller's clinic.

The former Air Force surgeon also operates his own clinic, Abortion & Contraception Clinic of Nebraska, in a nondescript building in a working-class neighborhood of Bellevue, an Omaha suburb. But he said he doesn't perform abortions past the 22nd week of pregnancy there.

"Nebraska state law is based on viability. Nobody has defined that," he told the AP. "It's much cheaper to go build a new clinic in Kansas than to try to define what viability means in Nebraska."

The type of late-term abortions performed by Tiller, Carhart and the handful of others are rare. More than 820,000 abortions were performed in the United States in 2005, according to the most recent available data from the Centers for Disease Control. Less than 2 percent of abortions occur at 21 weeks of pregnancy or later, according to Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-health think tank. It is unknown how many are done specifically in the third trimester, but Carhart said 75 to 100 of the "several thousand" abortions he performs annually are in the third trimester.

Abortion rights advocates also worry the group of physicians who can provide the service is dwindling.

"There are very, very few abortions that happen at that time," said Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, who said she worries about a "severe shortage" of physicians who can perform the procedure. "People who need those services need caring and compassionate and qualified doctors like Dr. Tiller who are able to provide those services."

With Tiller's death, there are fewer than 10 doctors who perform third-trimester abortions in the United States, Carhart estimated, and though he has worked with younger physicians before, he hasn't trained any abortion providers in third-trimester techniques for at least five years.

Carhart, with his wife Mary by his side at a news conference Tuesday, said he'd be willing to train younger doctors but few want to put themselves or their families at risk.

"Young people starting families aren't going to want to go into abortion practice," Mary Carhart said. "If you were young with little kids, would you want abortion opponents outside your house?"

Another doctor who performs third-trimester abortions, 70-year-old Warren Hern of Boulder, Colo., said he's also concerned there won't be enough doctors trained to perform abortions in the future. Hern is an associate clinical professor at the University of Colorado-Denver School of Medicine, but he said he hasn't been asked to speak on the topic of abortion at the school in 21 years.

School spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said full-time faculty mainly give lectures. As a clinical professor, she said Hern would teach students in the field, but she didn't know when Hern last worked with students.

Hern, who is being protected by U.S. Marshals following Tiller's killing, said many medical schools shy away from teaching about abortion and doctors don't want to learn about it.

"There are very few places that are teaching it," he said.

A day after Tiller was shot, Carhart vowed to reopen his friend's Kansas clinic and continue Tiller's mission. But on Tuesday, Tiller's family said there were no plans to reopen. Carhart said he remains hopeful that Tiller's family will change their minds. If not, he hopes another abortion provider will open a clinic in Kansas where he can work part-time.

For Carhart, the dispute over abortion is personal. In 1991, his family's rural home burned in a fire apparently started by an abortion foe.

But the Nebraska doctor said he's determined to continue doing what he does.

"As long as you have a terrorist who is willing to walk into a church and kill one person, as long as that element is in society, this is the risk we take," he said. "You can't live your life based on fear. You have to live by your principles."

[CLoverNYC1]

Carhart wants to train younger doctors in the partial birth abortion technique.

What's so complex about pulling only the head of the baby out ('partial birth') and then bashing the skull of the baby with a hammer?

That's so easy.

[ttamb]

Just think, if Obama's mom had an abortion, he wouldn't be president!

[ttamb]

As an adoptive child, I see these doctors as butchers. The government should spend money educating young people ?Birth Control?, ?Safe Sex?, ?Moral Principles?, instead of having some butcher rip the guts of these vulnerable young women. Additionally, for some of the women, it?s the ?Lazy and Cheapest? way out. The abortion doctors are no better than the ?Plastic Surgeons? that destroyed ?Michael Jackson?s Face and Facial Features of Countless Others?. It?s a way to control the population!

Question: How come this story is bigger than the ?Arkansas Military Center Shooting? that left Private William Long ?Dead?!!??

[TPS2]

noloyalisti

No point either

[TPS2]

PETA makes sense
bannednancy

Mmmm Gyros

[tommynutz]

These doctors are sick deranged murderers, and Tiller got what was coming to him.

Hopefully the trend continues.

[jankebenzone]

God bless Dr. Tiller and Dr. Leroy. At least they are helping women. They are doing something to make a difference.
All you people worrying about the unborn, go help the children that nobody cares about, help the children in need that are already here. Put your energy to some good use for a change.
Posted by sue1sey at 10:47 AM : Jun 4, 2009

Now there's a classic oxymoron, you want God to bless the abortionist, while he is the giver of life ,and the abortionist takes life.

[sue1sey]

God bless Dr. Tiller and Dr. Leroy. At least they are helping women. They are doing something to make a difference.
All you people worrying about the unborn, go help the children that nobody cares about, help the children in need that are already here. Put your energy to some good use for a change.

[tommynutz]

Why is it that all these infanticide doctors look like miserable child molestors.

This is what third term murders look like:

http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/photosassorted/

[freespeech101]

It seems in Kansas separation of Church and State is not as complete as we would like. The only reason the suspect was ignored by the FBI after multiple violations for which he could (should!) have been arrested that I can think of is an overly cozy relationship between the FBI and local religious/political realities they did not want to offend. As this resulted in death, and did involve terrorism (a supposed priority for enforcement) I think we are entitled to an official explanation perhaps involving disciplinary action if appropriate. And no cover ups or else obstruction of justice/conspiracy charges! Who is the U.S. Attorney involved in these decisions.

[antoniof123]

http://iowaindependent.com/2565/open-letter-to-obama-a-personal-perspective-on-late-term-abortion

If you are a wing nut you should read this and what late term abortion really is. Of course most of you haven't a clue so you should all take a look at it. It is not anything gross it is truth about what happens. It will suprise all of you this is a personal perspective on late term abortion. Of course if you don't have the guts to read it then that is your problem and you should just keep quite about things you do not know.

[Dgunner]

Asa laymen I don't fully understand the procedure or when or if it is murder or compromise. If this is indeed murder ? I would like to think that the United States govrnment with all its' flaws and freedoms would not allow revovling door muders operatives to practice in this country . With so few medical professional offering the procedure ? This clearly shows the popular convictions of medical proffesionals.There was only one pure human to walk this planet. We nailed him to a cross.

[jankebenzone]

Dr. Tiller performed his services in the name of Women's health. Come out of the dark ages, caveman.
Posted by gravyboat3000 at 6:46 PM : Jun 3, 2009

Even a neanderthal realizes that abortion is rarely good for the womans health, and fatal for the child she carries. Good thing the caveman/woman did'nt have the same selfish attitude toward their offspring.

[gravyboat3000]

Refering to an abortionist as a doctor is like calling the garbage collector an engineer.
A real doc cares for and saves lives,not destroy them.
Posted by jankebenzone

Dr. Tiller performed his services in the name of Women's health. Come out of the dark ages, caveman.

[jankebenzone]

Refering to an abortionist as a doctor is like calling the garbage collector an engineer.
A real doc cares for and saves lives,not destroy them.

[yahsuports]

Don't get me wrong I'm against all murder! And there isn't a court inthe world that has the moral right to saction any kind of mass murder .Just because they craft cleverly worded documents,fabricate lies to support their position and resort to name calling or character asassination of those who would see thru their ploys ,or rewrite definitions too server their cause of where or when life begins;and or are too Cowardly to do so.They that would do so have chosen a most hanious path,and that against the most innocent of a society;and that by the hands ofthose you would think would have the most natural of affection for them........their would be mothers.
In all the wars that the USA has fought since the revolutionairy war to the present a little over 12 million men have died,and we cry out against these wars,yet whenpopular out cry is great enough, we will retreat from the pathes that took us to war. But from 1973 to the pesent there have been more than 45 million babies murder alittle over 30yrs. WHERE IS THE OUT CRY!!!! Are we so harden in our lusts trhat there is no compation in us ?Are these helpless babies such a threat to our conscience as a reminder of what innocence loks like that we can't stand toremember from where we AS a People have fallen from,what we have become?Then we as a people deserve the punishment our Creator tells us is instore ;if there is no more room to feel pity on the helpless;and no room to fellshame,too cowardly toofeel any thing any more; then we have become as Sodom and Gomorah.

[noloyalisti]

Yes, I will answer you. The Christian fascists are in those "beat your head like an empty drum" churches. And in the anti-choice movement. And in the military, those that followed Bushoccio on his crusade in the middle east. Many of the wackos on News for Dumb Fox like O Lie Lee are Christian fascists. I would include Brush Lintballs and Slanthead Hannity as well as Michael Savage.

[yahsuports]

So bobford5 your equating Operation rescue with terrorists by stopping mass murderers ,like the allie troops did in stopping Hitler the mass murderer. Are you a closet Natzi.
Usually when two dogs are fighting and one picks up a rock and throws it at them the only dog that yelps is the one that got hit.

[caligula1--2008]

BTW, I could in no way shape or form be considered a "Christian" or for that matter a member of any religious faith. I just know people justifying doing something bad to someone else for their own convenience when I see it. The entire argument for making abortion legal is based on ethical, not moral, considerations. Everything else BUT the ethical arguments are simple attempts to rationalize what would, absent the other issues, be simple murder.

In fact some states currently treat the slaying of a pregnant woman to be a double homicide if the baby can't be saved.

[caligula1--2008]

< Hitler killed people who were actually alive. Tiller saved lives. >

The medical experiments carried out by the scientists of the Third Reich also saved lives. That was of little comfort to the involuntary human subjects of some of those experiments. The information they gathered was so valuable that we managed to overcome our objections to the method of gathering it and applied what they learned in our own military medical establishments. By now that research has probably saved far more lives (though our knowledge by now would have surpassed it there would have been a historical "rolling delay" in medical science) than were lost in the gathering of it, but it doesn't make it right, doesn't justify it, and can't compensate for the wrongs done to get it.

I understand abortion to save the life of the mother, even late term, and I can understand why a pregnant woman might want to have her fetus genetically screened and terminated if serious or lethal combinations are found. The second situation SHOULD, however, be something done as soon as possible and not held off until viable birth is possible, or even formation of more than a basic neural system, because as soon as those neurons start taking impressions from the outside world as seen from the womb, processing them, storing information, recalling it, the fetus has become a person, even if you don't believe in a soul. As far as abortions for convenience, well, IMHO, I just consider that the ultimate in vanity.

Abortion should remain technically legal, but morally abhorrent, particularly to those who ascribe to traditional Christian beliefs. It's practitioners, like soldiers, must consider the people who they are going to kill as PEOPLE, and make their decisions based on that premise, weighing their duty against a life every time they treat a patient, or pull the trigger.

If you're in either profession (I was a soldier), and don't think like that, you risk becoming a monster.

When you kill it SHOULD trouble your conscience, if it doesn't bother you, then you should start worrying if maybe you haven't become too dangerous to be around normal people.