Allentown, PA — Two abortion clinics with connections to the notorious abortionist Steven Chase Brigham have been ordered closed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Allentown Women’s Services was forced to close when it lost its lease at 2200 Hamilton St., Suite 200, in Allentown. The Pennsylvania Department of Health revoked its license on April 10, 2012, citing “infrastructure failure” after landlord David A. Klein Real Estate terminated the lease, changed the door locks, and stripped the clinic name off all the building’s signage. Local pro-life activists report that Brigham’s office and medical equipment is still inside the locked office and no known effort has been made to remove it.

In the closure order, Anna Marie Sossong, the PDH’s deputy secretary for quality assurance wrote:

“In addition, I would note that the Department of Health long has witnessed a chronic inability by AMS to comply with the most fundamental statutory and regulatory requirements. These recent events have shown that AMS is unwilling or unable to comply even with the most basic requirements of the law established and designed to assure the health and safety of the patients.”

American Women’s Services in Pittsburgh was ordered closed by the Department of Health after it failed to report the resignation of its Medical Director. Local activists indicate that there has been no replacement. The clinic was ordered to cease abortion services as of April 17, 2012.

The Medical Director at Allentown Women’s Services also resigned earlier this year, but was replaced by long-time Brigham employee Vikram Kaji, an abortionist who has been disciplined for sexually abusing at least three of his patients and indiscriminately prescribing controlled dangerous substances.

Both clinics were ordered by the State to update the American Women’s Services web site to reflect the fact that they are banned from doing abortions. However, as of this writing, the web site still listed the two offices as supplying abortions through 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Both Pennsylvania abortion clinics have ties to Brigham, who made recent headlines when he was arrested and charged with murder for operating an illegal late-term abortion business in Maryland where police discovered the frozen remains of 35 late-term aborted babies. Those charges were later dropped after an expert witness withdrew from the case under pressure from abortion groups.

Brigham’s Pennsylvania medical license is inactive and cannot be renewed. In July, 2010, Brigham was banned by the State of Pennsylvania from operating or controlling any abortion clinics in that state citing violations that endangered the public. Brigham circumvented the order by transferring ownership of his clinics to Rose Health Services, a company said to be owned by Brigham’s mother, and continued advertizing the clinics as part of his chain of 16 Abortion mills that operate in four states.

“Brigham has openly shown disregard for nearly every law on the books. He is a dangerous man who is not above deceiving authorities about the true nature of his disreputable abortion businesses,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation.

“His deception in Pennsylvania is finally exposed and his clinics there are closed, but he continues to operate clinics in New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. This poses an intolerable risk to women. Authorities in all these states are well aware of Brigham and while he is not allowed to practice medicine in any of them legally, they continue to allow him to operate his sleazy abortion mills. This is wrong and we will continue to work through the system to correct this problem until Brigham and his ilk are out of business for good.”

Read Brigham’s profile on AbortionDocs.org
Read about other troubled Brigham abortionists.

Nicola Riley’s Legal Woes Compounded By Pro-Life Efforts

By Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Policy Advisor for Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation

Salt Lake City, Utah – The Maryland Board of Physicians has refused to allow abortionist Nicola Irene Riley to surrender her Maryland medical license “on several occasions” in order to avoid discipline for her part in Steven Chase Brigham’s illegal late-term abortion scheme, according to the liberal, pro-abortion blog, the Daily Kos.

In addition, Riley has published an essay about her legal woes that was a requirement of her Stipulation Agreement with the Utah Department of Professional Licensing (DOPL) that also banned her from doing abortions in Utah where she attempts to shift the blame for her problems.

“Surrendering her license would place Riley outside the disciplinary jurisdiction of the Maryland Board of Physicians. She is doing everything she can to avoid the well-deserved consequences of her actions,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation. “We support the Board’s decision to not allow Riley to surrender her license. This is an egregious case that requires stern discipline. It would be a miscarriage of justice to allow her to weasel out of taking responsibility for the harm she has caused. ”

Riley’s Maryland license was suspended in September, 2010, after she botched an abortion on a woman who was 22 weeks pregnant at a secret late-term abortion clinic in Elkton, Maryland. Brigham had started the patient’s abortion at his clinic in New Jersey, which is not licensed for abortions after 14 weeks. She was then led in a caravan by Brigham across state lines to the Elkton location where Riley perforated her uterus and injured her bowel during an abortion Riley failed to complete. The patient was transported in a private vehicle to a nearby hospital where Riley’s suspicious behavior delayed emergency care for the injured woman, who was later air-lifted into Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for emergency surgery that saved her life. Police later raided the Elkton clinic and discovered the bodies of 35 late-term babies stored in a freezer.

Riley and Brigham were charged in Maryland with the murder of viable babies, but charges were later dropped after a key expert witness changed his testimony that the babies had died in Maryland. The criminal investigation remains open and the possibility remains that murder charges could be refiled.

After the botched abortion incident became public, Operation Rescue dug deeper into Riley’s background and discovered that she had lied about her criminal conviction and incarceration while serving in the US Army in order to gain admittance to medical school and licensure in Utah, Wyoming, and Maryland. Operation Rescue then filed complaints in those states asking for Riley’s licenses to be revoked based on her dishonesty on her license applications, as well as a complaint in Virginia where Riley had an open license application.

As a result, Riley’s Wyoming license was surrendered in order to avoid revocation proceedings and her Utah license was restricted to ban her from doing abortions. She was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine in Utah after she admitted to the deception. Maryland filed additional charges against Riley for lying about her conviction to gain licensure in that state and Riley’s Virginia license application has been blocked.

Riley complained about this and more in her essay to the Utah licensing authority. She says that because of her actions in Maryland and dishonestly concerning her criminal background, she has:

Lost her certification from the American Board of Family Medicine

Been terminated from a job position

Lost privileges at two Utah hospitals

Been sued for malpractice

Lost her malpractice insurance

Lost many of her patients

“Riley is not the victim as she would have us believe. She brought all these problems on herself. No one made her commit identity theft and credit card fraud or lie about her criminal conviction. No one made her go to work for Steven Brigham, one of the nation’s most dangerous abortionists, knowing he was not licensed in the State of Maryland. No one made her botch that abortion or stonewall the police investigation. When we found out about her wrong-doing, we exposed it to the public and filed additional complaints so that others might be protected from her chronic abuses. We are unapologetic about that,” said Newman.

“We want this case to be an encouragement to pro-life supporters everywhere to research and document abortion abuses of their local abortion clinics and report them to the proper authorities. In reporting abortionists, we are performing a public service that will serve to protect women and save lives.”

To view or submit documentation of abortion abuses nationwide visit AbortionDocs.org.

Visit Riley’s profile on AbortionDocs.org

While charges have been dropped for now, the investigation of Brigham and Riley’s late-term abortion scheme continues

By Cheryl Sullenger

Elkton, MD — State Attorney Ellis Rollins told reporters on Wednesday that he withdrew murder charges against abortionist Steven Chase Brigham and Nicola Irene Riley on Tuesday because his expert witness succumbed to pressure “from [the expert's] colleagues in the late-term abortion community.”

Brigham and Riley had been charged with the murder of viable pre-born babies under Maryland’s fetal homicide law that allows prosecutions of those who kill viable babies in the commission of a crime.

The two abortionists conducted a bi-state late-term abortion operation in which women would begin their abortions at Brigham’s main office in Voorhees, New Jersey, — where he was not licensed to do abortions past 14 weeks — then return the next day when they travelled in caravan to a clandestine abortion clinic in Elkton for the completion of the abortion. While Riley is licensed in Maryland, Brigham holds no medical license in that state. The operation was discovered when one of their patients suffered life-threatening botched abortion injuries that required her to be airlifted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for emergency surgery to save her life.

Brigham’s defense challenged the jurisdictional authority of Maryland to charge the abortionists, alleging that the deaths of the babies actually took place in New Jersey with Maryland only being the site where the remains were evacuated from the mother’s womb.

Rollins said that the Elkton police conducted their own investigation and determined that the babies died in Maryland, not in New Jersey as the defense contends. An expert witness for the state was retained, who confirmed that the deaths took place in Maryland. The witness, who Rollins has declined to identify, is considered an expert in late-term abortions.

“He led us to believe that the medical evidence pointed to the fact that both parts of the abortion process had to have occurred in Maryland. He was unequivocal,” Rollins said.

But last week, a phone call between Rollins and the expert witness indicated that the witness had been in contact with other late-term abortionists who were pressuring him to change his views. “In the phone call, he indicated that he was feeling pressure from some colleagues. We did what we could to reassure him,” Rollins said.

Then on Friday, the witness sent an “unsolicited e-mail” to Rollins indicating that he was now unsure where the deaths of the babies occurred.

“There can be no doubt that late-term abortionists fearing for their own careers applied pressure to the witness and he succumbed under the pressure. In other words, he was bullied into bowing out of the case,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “We have seen some of the documents for ourselves and the evidence is strong that the babies were still alive when they were dismembered at that Elkton abortion mill.”

Since the passing of the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, late-term abortionists have adopted what has become known as the Induction Abortion method. In this kind of abortion, the living is injected through the mother’s abdominal wall with digoxin or some other drug that causes “fetal demise” or the death of the baby in the womb. The woman’s cervix is then packed with laminaria, which are thin tampon-like dilators made of seaweed that gently expand the opening of the womb. The woman is then given drugs to initiate labor. Finally, the abortionist extracts the dead baby either intact or in parts.

Brigham’s defense indicated that the fetal demise would have taken place in New Jersey. This would have been done with the lethal fetal injection.

“The injection process is a tricky one, and it is not unusual for the injection to fail. But in this case, Brigham’s own records indicate that he was cutting corners on the process and skipping the fetal injection altogether. That would mean these babies were alive at the time they were aborted in Maryland,” said Newman.

According to records obtained by Operation Rescue through open records requests, there is documented evidence that at least one baby was alive at the time of the abortion in Maryland. Brigham’s own medical records in the case of D.B., an 18-year old patient whose botched 22-week abortion first drew attention to Brigham’s illegal late-term abortion enterprise, incriminate him.

A form titled Laminaria Insertion & Induction of Fetal Demise was produced at Brigham’s Voorhees, New Jersey, facility on August 12, 2010, the day before D.B. botched surgery in Maryland. On that form, Brigham documents a pelvic exam and laminaria insertion, but the section of the form that is supposed to document an injection into the baby that would bring about fetal demise is left blank.

“Without the fetal injection, nothing in the process that took place in New Jersey could have killed the baby,” said Newman. “Given the record we have seen, that baby died in Maryland.”

“We know what they (Brigham and Riley) had done, but we can’t prove where they did it,” Rollins said.

Rollins indicated that he withdrew the charges because he did not have time to obtain another expert before next week’s scheduled motions hearing. Meanwhile Rollins told the Cecil Whig newspaper that they are still pursuing the case against the abortionists and that the investigation remains open.

“We’re still investigating. We’re going back to the drawing board and we’re starting all over,” he said.

“We have one message for Brigham and Riley,” said Newman. “Don’t lose the number to the bail bondsman.”