this is really bizarre: two OB GYN's from other states are performing late term abortions in Maryland. Is this some kind of abortion rights- right to privacy issue for the doc's, or just a way of making money? Cant they make enough money without conducting late term abortions? Is this ideological for them? Or are they just really creepy doctors? This just gives the anti abortion nuts a case to make for banning all late term abortions, that abortion doctors are creepy, that abortion clinics need to be regulated more. In Pennsylvania, a state senator (who is currently on trial for fraud, producing false documents at her earlier trial - that's another story - she is definitely going to jail) introduced a bill to regulate abortion clinics as any other health care clinic, which would require abortion clinics to greatly expand their services, equipment, staff and so forth, ostensibly to prevent nightmare abortion clinics like the one in Philadelphia, but the hidden agenda is to close down as many abortion clinics as possible (the state senator soon to be convict is roman catholic).
Authorities say two out-of-state doctors who traveled to Maryland to perform late-term abortions have been arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder, an unusual use of a law that allows for murder charges in the death of a viable fetus.
Dr. Steven Brigham, of Voorhees, N.J., was taken into custody Wednesday night and is being held in the Camden County jail, according to police in Elkton, Md. Authorities also arrested Dr.Nicola Riley in Salt Lake City and she is in jail in Utah. Each is awaiting an extradition hearing.
A grand jury indicted the two doctors after a 16-month investigation, police said.
The investigation began in August 2010 after what authorities say was a botched procedure at Brigham's clinic in Elkton, located near the border of Maryland and Delaware.
An 18-year-old woman who was 21 weeks pregnant suffered a ruptured uterus and an injured bowel, according to documents filed in a previous investigation by medical regulators. Rather than call 911, Riley drove her to a nearby hospital, where both she and Brigham were uncooperative and Brigham refused to give his name, documents show.
A search of the clinic after the botched abortion revealed a freezer containing 35 late-term fetuses, including one believed to have been aborted at 36 weeks, the documents show.
Brigham, 55, is charged with five counts of first-degree murder, five counts of second-degree murder and one count of conspiracy. Riley, 46, faces one count each of first- and second-degree murder and one conspiracy count.
The botched 2010 abortion led regulators to order Brigham to stop practicing medicine in Maryland without a license, and Riley's Maryland license was suspended. Brigham's New Jersey license was also suspended, leaving him without a valid license in any state, and New Jersey authorities are pursuing revocation of his license there. New Jersey authorities have cooperated with the Maryland criminal probe, said Thomas R. Calcagni, director of the State Division of Consumer Affairs.
According to regulators, Brigham would begin abortions in New Jersey and have his patients drive themselves to Maryland to complete the procedures, taking advantage of Maryland's more permissive laws. Brigham was not authorized to perform abortions in New Jersey after the first trimester, and regulators called his actions manipulative and deceptive.
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