New late-term, half-abortion scheme: Kill babies by lethal injection and nothing more
Revelations about the dangerous and dastardly practices of late-term abortionists, particularly on the East Coast (Brigham, Carhart, Gosnell), continue.
Today Operation Rescue exposed yet another new way they are circumventing the system – this time only by killing babies by lethal injection and nothing more. This will force many pro-life obstetricians and hospitals into complicity by completing the abortion.
Notorious late-term abortionist James Pendergraft, a convicted felon whose FL license is currently running concurrent 3rd and 4th suspensions, has set up practice in an undisclosed DC-area office where he will solely kill preborn babies by lethal injection and then send mothers off to complete the abortions wherever/however they can. According to Pendergraft’s website, LateTermAbortions.net:
We perform the intracardiac injection of medication into the fetal heart in our private facility in the Washington, D.C. area. Once the fetal heart beat has stopped, the patient can elect to return back to her private physician to complete the induction of labor with delivery of the fetus, or they may elect to go to another facility to have the termination process completed.
While some mothers will skip across town to Carhart to complete the abortion, others will force their own good doctors to finish them, perhaps unwittingly.
Under this scenario a mother would make an emergency appointment with her obstetrician, or go to the ER, stating she can no longer feel her baby move. When ultrasound confirms the baby is dead, labor and delivery will be induced. My guess is the cause of death will often never be admitted or determined. And the mother will need help – or die. According to Pendergraft’s FAQs:
What happens if I change my mind after the intra-cardiac injection to go through with the remainder of the procedure?
… Generally when most fetuses die in utero, there are enzymes released that cause an inflammatory reaction to occur which leads to labor which is followed by delivery of the tissue. The problem is if you do not go into labor for a few days, not only can the patient’s blood become severely infected, but this can lead to a clotting disorder where the patient’s blood does not clot, severe low blood pressure, bleeding constantly from needle sticks, internal bleeding, multiple organ failure which can lead to maternal death. This is nothing that should be taken lightly. Therefore once the intra-cardiac injection is complete, there is no turning back. The remainder of the procedure must be carried out as pre-planned.
And:
There are some women who experience vaginal spotting or bleeding. It is extremely rare but complete or partial separation of the placenta (abruption) can occur along with heavy vaginal bleeding. There have been rare occasions where infection of the amniotic fluid (amnionitis), the intrauterine cavity (Endometritis), or the muscle of the uterus (myometritis) occurs. It is extremely rare but maternal death has occurred due to sepsis (infection getting into the mother’s blood) or severe vaginal bleeding.
Again, Pendergraft will not be the one completing the abortion or attending to complications.
The procedure itself:
The patient’s abdomen is cleansed with an anti-septic solution. A sonogram sector scan is placed on the patient’s abdomen and the fetal abdominal cavity is isolated. A spinal needle is guided slowly into the fetal heart where a feticide agent or 50cc’s of air is injected via a syringe to stop the fetal heart beat. The procedure usually takes 2 to 4 minutes to perform. The patient is then observed for several minutes in the procedure room…. With or without IV Sedation patients are able to go home in 10 to 15 minutes after the procedure is performed.
While Pendergraft states in one place he “specializes in caring for those patients who are diagnosed with health problems that can affect the mother’s life or health, or there is a severe fetal abnormality not compatible with life,” and “[w]e specialize, and limit our practice to helping patients in need of therapeutic (maternal and fetal) indications for abortions,” this is not true. He devotes an entire section to “Teenage Late Term Abortion,” for abortions of healthy babies. My guess is Pendergraft also made sure he set up shop in a place where there are no parental involvement laws.
Pendergraft does not state how late he will abort, just “second and third trimester pregnancies (greater than 24 weeks).”
Pendergraft also states a bold-face lie:
This procedure has been performed over 3000 times without a single complication at Orlando Women’s Center on patients 22 to 24 weeks pregnant.
But in April 2005 a pregnant mother delivered her baby alive in a toilet at Pendergraft’s Orlando mill after he told her he had lethally injected the baby’s heart. Baby Rowan, pictured left, lived 11 minutes after mill workers refused to get him help. The tragedy was later retold in the docu-drama, 22Weeks.
For starters, the Dept. of Justice should investigate Pendergraft for potentially forcing conscience violations of other medical professionals.
Pendergraft’s practice is very dangerous to mothers and obviously lethal to babies.
This is morally obscene, but who will stop it?
The federal government, the DC government and the Maryland state government are all controlled by the criminal abortionists. The Virginia state government is nominally pro-life, but what will (or can) they do to help?
If this guy wants to commit late term prenatal homicide, he can probably do it. After all, Leroy Carhart is now killing older unborn children up in Germantown. Our society does not seem to want to end this violence.
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The thing is hospitals can determine the age and cause of fetal demise, so it seems that if it is done beyond a certain gestational age, he could run afoul of the law especially if a woman has problems, etc., and then tells the whole story.
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This monster doesn’t give a damn about women. Why isn’t the liberal feminist crowd screaming? He’s just another butcher, operating strictly for greedy gain. How in the world can this guy’s methods be legal?
This is just too much to comprehend. My God, America, how much of this are you going to tolerate? Are we really a country that stabs babies in the heart with lethal drugs and calls it progress?
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Ugh, I feel like I’m going to vomit. The LAST thing we need is more “innovation” in the name of “choice”, “progress”, “women’s health care”, or whatever other politically-correct BS phrase they choose to call induced abortion.
I know this question has been asked by many pro-lifers before, but …. My question of the day is: WHY carry the child that far and go through the pain of delivery for a dead child instead of just waiting a month or two more, delivering a LIVE baby, and giving that baby up for adoption? Oh yeah, I forgot – because it’s somehow better for the child to be maliciously, intentionally killed than to grow up in an adoptive home. Disgusting.
And yes, I am sorry for my use of the term BS… I’m a Christian and I don’t believe in cussing but I honestly couldn’t think of a more accurate and appropriate term for that particular context (I tried). And abortion is something that strongly tempts me to use foul language. I can’t stand the fact that so many people think it is hunky-dory to kill unborn children but somehow magically it’s wrong to kill them when they exit their mother’s body. I’m so sick of the wierd inconsistency in the collective thoughts of so many people on this issue.
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My question of the day is: WHY carry the child that far and go through the pain of delivery for a dead child instead of just waiting a month or two more, delivering a LIVE baby, and giving that baby up for adoption? Oh yeah, I forgot – because it’s somehow better for the child to be maliciously, intentionally killed than to grow up in an adoptive home. Disgusting.
I guess it’s the same “rationale” that abusive men who kill their spouses use — if I can’t have you, than nobody can.
You’re right, it’s sick and totally depraved.
On a brighter note, does everyone know that Baltimore’s anti-pregnancy care center law was ruled UNCONSTITUTIONAL because it limits the center’s right to free speech? HOORAY!
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Right with ya Army Wife. Killing unborn children in the womb makes me want to cuss as well.
There are a few of us in the northeast Detroit are who are determined to get the abortion clinics out of our neighborhoods.
I’ll let you know how we make out.
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horrifying…. what an awful stain on such a great nation…
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I guess it’s the same “rationale” that abusive men who kill their spouses use — if I can’t have you, than nobody can.
Yep. Oh, and so much for “safe and legal” abortions. Clearly what this guy is doing is illegal and HIGHLY unsafe for women. Oh, but right, he CARES about women. That’s why he’ll send them off to die of sepsis, hmm? You think the “back alley” abortionist actually went the way of the dodo? Nah, they just set up shop and practice. Even when their medical licenses have been suspended or revoked. Cue the excuses from pro-aborts about how Pendergraft has been forced by pro-lifers to resort to this way of moneymaking – er, I mean – “woman helping.”
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My 1st thought when I read this was, “YOU ANIMAL!” then I quickly realized that animals would never stoop to doing something so evil as this man. May God bring conversion to his heart and mind. And may we do all we can to stop this horrendous practice from continuing in our country.
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As a person who was born at 24 weeks – I don’t even know where to start – dangerous for the woman, deadly for the baby, uncaring for his fellow medical professionals and just cowardly, evil and unimaginable.
I know that it is said that Money never sleeps, but I see clearly that EVIL NEVER SLEEPS. We need to be vigilant. So many ways to kill a child and harm women. I guess I should not be surprised…. Lord have mercy.
Just as with Abbey Johnson – we need to pray for these abortionists by name and never stop. Let’s hope America wakes up from her slumber. Abortion is killing her (and the world’s children) every day, in every way imaginable…. Lord have mercy on all of us.
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If they’re going to go through labor anyway, why not just give birth to a living baby and hand it over to social services> Why not make some childless couple’s dream come true? Could they get any more selfish? All this to give birth to death when another few weeks could see a viable baby given to someone who wants him/her? What planet are these people from?
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“cause an inflammatory reaction to occur which leads to labor which is followed by delivery of the tissue.”
Still, STILL the lie about “tissue”, in spite of the photo in Jill’s post which shows a body, whole and complete in form and function.
This is a neat little way for late term abortionists to ply their deadly trade and then pass off the most complicated part to their more respectable colleagues. They get to kill the baby, take the fee, and then not have to deal with the messy delivery and complications.
A few thoughts occur to me. The insurance industry needs to look into this as a potential manifestation of insurance fraud on the part of the patient and the abortion doctor. If an insurance company will not pay for a late term abortion, then a woman procuring a lethal injection who shows at her doctor’s office or hospital is essentially committing fraud.
If this is to be the case, then the insurance industry would be right to push for legislation that would require post-mortem analysis of the babies who die in utero to determine cause of death. It is the one case where I would support prosecution of the mother as well as the abortionist on charges of insurance fraud.
Decent doctors should not be forced to incur the cost and burden associated with the most challenging dimensions of late-term abortions.
Policy holders of insurance companies should not shoulder the burden of incurring higher cost of healthcare because their company is being duped into providing high-risk procedures that they normally wouldn’t cover.
This is criminal fraud and should be prosecuted as such.
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So…He won’t get in any trouble if there are any complications because he didn’t TECHNICALLY “finish the job”.
That’s like shooting someone and, when you notice they’re not dead yet, you hand the gun to someone else to inflict the fatal shot.
Just when you think abortionists can’t GET any sleazier…
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This is an easy one for pro-lifers to get a law against. It would have the backing of the insurance industry.
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This is gruesome. I will by no means defend the practice.
But in what sense does it make pro-life physicians “complicit”? They deliver a baby that this hit man has killed.
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RJ,
Abortion is not only the killing of a baby, but involves its delivery and the management of the mother during and after the procedure. Inflammatory responses leading to premature delivery involve a host of endocrinological changes that are different from those associated with normal delivery, or otherwise induced labor.
The cervix does not ripen as it would naturally, and the woman has not been tested for STD’s such as Chlamydia, which is a silent infection in half of all women. If she has not been tested, treated, and retested to confirm successful antimicrobial therapy, then she bears a 23% risk of developing pelvic inflammatory disease within 4 weeks.
There is good reason why even amongst abortionists, 99.99999% refuse to do these late-term procedures. The lethal injection is the easy part. It’s the rest that is so very dicey, and it sticks the honorable OB and the insurance company with all of the risk, responsibility, liability, and mess.
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Consider also one of the ‘botched’ lethal injections (one we know about) Tiller did, where baby Sarah died 5 years after two injections to her head. Does Pendergraft have malpractice insurance? When things do go wrong delivering her dead child, who is at fault? Is it the family OB/GYN this situation was thrust upon, who scrambles to treat as best as he or she knows how, given false or at the very least, misleading information? Dr. Nadal is absolutely correct about the potential implications.
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Generally when most fetuses die in utero, there are enzymes released that cause an inflammatory reaction to occur which leads to labor which is followed by delivery of the tissue.
I think Pendergrast meant to say “when babies are killed in utero”. Is this method (of stopping the baby’s heart) one that he is legally allowed to do even while he is on suspension in Florida? Aren’t there federal regulators who can stop his hopping, skipping and jumping from state to state? This is a disgrace and even the pro-abortion AMA should be outraged. Do they teach this in medical school? Lord have mercy.
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Gerald:
Those are interesting medical facts, but they don’t seem responsive to my questioning of “complicit,” which connotes some moral guilt.
If I were a pro-life Ob-Gyn (I’m a pro-life lawyer), I’d be furious; I’d feel “slimed;” I’d … if a woman showed up for me to deliver her dead baby after this atrocity. But I don’t think I’d feel any moral guilt.
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JR,
If I were an OB and the woman told me the truth up front, I’d refuse to treat her.
On the moral front, feeling slimed comes from knowing that one has participated in a homicidal act, however unwittingly. Certainly there is no subjective guilt imputed to the honorable and unwitting physician, but the fact remains that they were duped into participating in the abortion.
Thanks for your pro-life work in the Law!!
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Gerald:
I follow you now, but I’m not sure I agree that you’ve participated any more than a forensic team participates in the murder that leaves a particularly grisly crime scene.
Lest I become a lurker, that’s probably all I’ll say, the points on each side having been made. Maybe I’m walking proof that law school is a “bloodless lobotomy.”
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And how this is different from the “back alley”?
I’m sorry the feminists lost the ERA in 1972, but my theory is that the reason feminists embraced abortion after Roe v Wade is because they incorrectly believed that they were finally winning something. All their promises that legal abortion would end the “back alley” have been broken. The ‘back alley’ has a shingle up on Main Street.
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RJ,
LOL!
A further thought:
What would prevent a woman from having her baby executed in this manner, dupe her own physician into believing that the child inexplicably died, then sue her OB for malpractice?
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A second candidate for the 2011 NARAL Defender of Women’s Choice award.
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Abortion is so barbaric! It’s disgusting that anyone could do anything like this to another human being, a baby especially!
The picture was especially hard to view because my third child was born at 27 weeks and he was very small for his age. He didn’t look a whole lot different from that poor baby when he was first born. (He is doing great today, btw! Almost 17 months). I just want to hold that precious baby. Such a senseless tragedy!
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Gerald:
Law School Maxim: You can sue anybody for anything, but winning’s another matter.
So nothing prevents the sociopathic scenario you sketch, but winning a malpractice suit requires proof (by a preponderance, 50%+, on each element of the case) of (1) a deviation from the standard of care, (2) causation of harm and (3) some way to assign a dollar value to the harm. No lawyer who understands that is likely to take a case that “my baby died in utero so my OB must have malpracticed.”
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Gerard, I thought the same thing “tissue”? Does a woman who feels her baby kick REALLY think “Oh! The tissue just kicked me! Oh! The tissue has hiccups!”
What lies the abortion industry tells.
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Reader John,
Read Dr. Nadal’s first name again. LOL
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Oopsie! I even get misdirected e-mail for a “Gerard,” so I should know better. I subscribe to his Tweets and Jill’s.
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Happens all the time John ;-)
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Dr. Nadal,
I was thinking the same thing about the tissue. How is it that he describes a lethal injection to the heart and then proceeds to talk about ’tissue’?
I have a concern about the refusal to deliver theory, however. If a practicing physician learns that his patient has seen Pendergraft and had her baby killed in utero, would it be morally sound for him to refuse to treat the patient? I understand that there is great complexity to the issue, but I worry that choosing not to treat a patient when you know that not getting treatment could result in her death is unethical. :-/
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MaryRose,
It’s a great ethical question. Behavior has its consequences, and I simply could not allow myself to be manipulated into formal cooperation in abortion. There’s always another colleague around who would think differently, but just because a woman does something like this does not mean that I must finish the filthy deed. That’s just the moral dimension.
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I just got done watching Nancy Grace. She had a case on there tonight from Tampa Florida, of a mother who shot her 13 year old son and her 16 year old daughter, because “they were mouthy.” It seems these kids sassed her a lot, so she bought a gun and shot them. How many of us, who were not raised in Christian homes, and therefore were not taught the importance of honoring our parents, sassed our parents when we were that age?
Is this where the lack of respect for human life leads? If we can murder our children in the womb, we maybe can murder them out of the womb too, when they get on our nerves, or when we don’t get along with them. Never mind infanticide, this lady took it all the way to adolesence.
Oh, dear Lord, when will it end?
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Ceecee:
I’m “waiting for the other foot to drop” on that story. Non-trivial chance that mom’s influenced by Christian Reconstructionists, since cursing parents was one of 18 or so capital offenses under the Levitical code. Leviticus 20:9.
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Abhorrent and disgusting website. First of all what the radical pro-abortion side refuses to acknowledge:
1)LATE TERM ABORTIONS ARE NOT SAFER THAN CHILDBIRTH. Although the whole claim behind Late-term abortion is to safe the life or health of the mother, they really are no safer than childbirth (and this is according to Guttmacher). So why defend such a practice in the best interest of the woman if it doesn’t benefit her?
2) TERMINATION Of a Pregnancy does not necessitate abortion: Sometimes a pregnancy may need to be terminated, due to maternal health complications, late in pregnancy. However, it would be better to terminate that pregnancy with a live baby versus a dead one. If the risks are near the same (abortion is actually a slightly higher risk of death after 21 wks. when compared to childbirth, according to Guttmacher) wouldn’t it be better to end the pregnancy with a live child than one who is dead?
3) Just goes to show the real interest of abortion is not in protecting a Woman’s right to their own body: If abortion was only about a woman’s right to her own body, there would be no support of abortion post viability. The whole argument for abortion from that perspective is that the woman has a right to choose what she wants to do with her own body (i.e. whether or not she wants to allow the fetus to grow inside of her). If the interest were JUST in removing the fetus/unborn baby, wouldn’t it make absolutely NO SENSE to support delivering a dead fetus over a live one? Apparently this is far more about avoiding responsibility rather than protecting one’s body. The “my body my choice” argument really does not fly in support of any late-term abortion.
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“Double suspension” of Pendergraft’s license doesn’t seem to be deterring him in the least. He is bent on killing and must be above the law.
Maybe it is more like Double Secret Probation!
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Folks, please pray for ths man’s conversion. It can happen.
But one thing I’m confused about is; where are these women supposed to deliver their dead babies? At home? On a bus? In the street?
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I think Pendergrast meant to say “when babies are killed in utero”.
Actually, I don’t think so. It sounds to me like he’s talking about a natural reaction that occurs in a miscarriage. Which I find concerning, because I’m starting to wonder if that implies that this doesn’t occur with the procedure he’s using, without actually saying so to mislead his patients.
If the interest were JUST in removing the fetus/unborn baby, wouldn’t it make absolutely NO SENSE to support delivering a dead fetus over a live one?
Alright, I know I’m gonna catch doo-doo for this, but…not entirely. However the fetus is removed, it’s going to be through a procedure done to the mother’s body. So, she should have the right to choose what is done to her. This is definitely a weird area though, one more complex than pre-viability abortions.
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I’m sure the danger this quack is describing has to do only with babies murdered inutero.
I’m led to believe (through my experiences and maybe way to much resultant study) that natural miscarriage involves a certain amount of natural hormonal changes during (possibly before) and after baby dies that usually prevent such life-threatening infections. So of course these hormonal changes wouldn’t happen if the child is murdered or otherwise killed by attack or accident before birth.
Like in “early” miscarriages it may be weeks before mom finds out baby is gone and has had no untoward symptoms until she naturally delivers.
Or “late” miscarriages before 21wks but after 12 when mom may not have felt baby move yet and so wouldn’t be aware that s/he had stopped and finds out much later like at the 20wk “big” ultrasound that baby had died a week or more ago and has no illness or symptoms.
And what about in countries where there isn’t much prenatal care and you get some of these “sleeping babies” who don’t move and aren’t born for a long time, maybe years, after they were due. They are born with this calcified covering after mom’s body coated them to prevent infection (an apparent natural reaction to late fetal demise) if the death didn’t trigger birth. The extreme cases have been in the news, like the one woman who didn’t give birth for 7 years, or the woman who’s baby was ectopic and couldn’t be born naturally. S/he “went to sleep” and was delivered by Cesarean decades later!!
The body begins “breaking down” and “metabolizing” babies very quickly after they die and I was under the impression that THAT was why stillborns were delivered as fast as possible, so mom and family can see and say goodbye to a “prettier” baby and not be upset by what’s left after the body does it’s natural thing.
(and yes I realize that infections and the like DO happen, I’m just saying that it isn’t as guaranteed in the normal course of things as the quack seems to suggest, though it in all likelyhood IS guaranteed after child-murder)
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Awe the poor little lamb… how can people not view this a murdering a human life? you can’t deny this little one is not a person. makes me ever so sad!!
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