Wednesday October 13, 2010
New Jersey AG Slams Abortionist’s “Ludicrous” Attempt to Evade Charges
By Kathleen Gilbert
VOORHEES, New Jersey, October 13, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – New Jersey’s attorney general has called an abortionist’s claim to innocence “ludicrous” after he was caught running an inter-state abortion scheme that attempted to evade New Jersey law, where he is disallowed from performing late-term abortions.
Stephen Chase Brigham’s business, which involved ferrying New Jersey patients to Maryland midway through an abortion to complete the procedure there, was exposed in August after one of Brigham’s accomplices lacerated a woman’s internal organs during an abortion so severely that she had to be flown to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Brigham, who is reportedly not trained in obstetrics or gynecology, does not have admitting privileges at New Jersey hospitals.
But in a 223-page motion to dismiss, Brigham’s attorney claimed last month that the abortionist could not be prosecuted by New Jersey because the state in 1996 had dismissed similar charges brought against him. The defendant also argued that a 1999 letter from the State Board of Medical Examiners, which informed an anonymous petitioning abortionist that there would “appear to be no problem” with his inserting laminaria before an abortion, meant his later actions were entirely legal.
After adding two more charges of illegal abortion earlier this month, New Jersey Deputy Attorney General Jeri Warhaftig responded that “the 1996 Order of the Board does not accord [Brigham] free rein to engage in the violative acts alleged.” The deputy AG noted that Brigham not only inserted laminaria, but also administered a lethal injection in the baby’s heart and gave the woman misoprostol to induce labor before crossing the border to Maryland.
“[Brigham’s] attempt to claim that he has been exonerated of any blame for his negligent and dangerous pattern of conduct is disingenuous at best,” Warhafting wrote. “It is ludicrous to believe that in its past careful assessment … this Board intended to abandon oversight of the medical care provided to New Jersey citizens.”
Brigham’s recent conduct, wrote the deputy attorney general, is “emblematic of [his] attempts to craft a scheme whereby he provides sub-standard medical care to New Jersey women while attempting to skirt the requirements of New Jersey law and to hide behind dupes that are employed as independent contractors in his practice.”
The legal battle is not the first for Brigham, who has had licenses revoked or surrendered under pressure in California, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and New York.
New York’s State Board for Professional Medical Conduct revoked the abortionist’s license in 1994, after finding that allowing him to continue practicing medicine “constitutes an imminent danger to the health of the people of this state.”
The board details in its statement of charges one abortion during which Brigham sliced into a woman’s uterus and her uterine artery – but, in the board’s words, “failed to recognize the existence of the laceration.” The board found that Brigham attempted to repair the grave wound in his own office, even after the patient had gone into shock, and “delayed inappropriately” in getting the profusely bleeding patient to the hospital.
Officials found that a second patient suffered a lacerated colon, uterus and other organs, including a ureter that was completely severed, in the course of one of Brigham’s abortion.
However, Operation Rescue reports that Brigham was able to keep his New Jersey license following the 1994 incident when New Jersey Administrative Law Judge Joseph F. Fidler, relying heavily on testimony from other notorious abortionists supporting Brigham, dismissed every charge – with the exception of dishonesty for advertising that his abortions were “safe” and “painless.”
It was revealed recently that Brigham is also facing a lawsuit from George Zallie, whose daughter Stacey Zallie killed herself after an abortion at Brigham’s hands. Zallie, who founded the Stacey Zallie Foundation dedicated to post-abortion grief awareness, has accused Brigham of failing to give his daughter enough information about the procedure to allow full consent.