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April 24, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Abortion defenders routinely insist that late-term abortions are unheard of for anything but the most heart-rending medical emergencies, but a notorious late-term abortionist admits otherwise in a recently-unearthed video.

This week, the group Abortion on Trial published a video of an October 2019 deposition given by New Mexico abortionist Curtis Boyd in the wrongful death suit filed by the family of one of his “patients,” Keisha Marie Atkins. In it, Boyd says it’s his “calling” to provide “full-range, first, second, and third-trimester” abortion services.

“There’s no set period” in terms of the gestational age at which his practice would no longer abort, he says in the video.

Boyd defends his work by invoking his background as an “ordained (Baptist) minister” who believes in “compassion and service above self,” and does not “want to say no to someone who’s in a desperate situation.”

Atkins died in February 2017 after seeking a 24-week abortion from Boyd at Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO) in Albuquerque. She arrived there on January 31 to begin the abortion process and returned on February 3 displaying labored breathing and signs of the life-threatening infection sepsis.

Atkins was taken to the operating room to complete the abortion (by delivering her baby stillborn after a lethal injection), at which point she went into cardiac arrest. She was transported to the University of New Mexico hospital, where she died.

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In September 2018, her family filed a lawsuit against Boyd, UNM Health Systems, the UNM Board of Regents, the UNM Health Sciences Center, and pathologist Dr. Lauren Dvorscak. Family attorney Michael Seibel alleges a “series of negligence and malpractice which ultimately led to her untimely death,” which “were compounded by the fact that she was instructed to not seek emergency room care by Southwestern doctors.”

In March 2018, the New Mexico Medical Board also opened an investigation into Boyd, deciding the allegations “warrant further formal review to determine whether the licensee is in violation of the Medical Practice Act.”

Late-term abortion’s defenders note that, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, “only” 1.2 percent of 2016’s 623,471 occurred past 21 weeks, although that still comes out to more than 7,481 late-term abortions in a single year. Further, the true number would be considerably higher, as the CDC doesn’t receive any abortion data from California, Maryland, or New Hampshire.

Boyd, to whom more than 100,000 abortions have been attributed since the 1960s, has previously admitted, “Am I killing? Yes, I am. I know that,” and that he committed illegal abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade. Abortion on Trial, which is raising money to support the Atkins family’s legal efforts, says the wrongful-death suit is slated to go to trial next year.