The national umbrella group may be responsible for a massive abortion abuse cover up nationwide

Wilmington, Delaware – In the wake of the arrest of Pennsylvania abortionist Kermit Gosnell on eight counts of murder, the National Abortion Federation has cut lose three of its member clinics that had ties to Gosnell, just days after Operation Rescue published a report linking Gosnell to Leroy Brinkley owner of the embattled clinics. A string of additional troubled clinics has also been dumped by the NAF in recent months.

“The fact that the grand jury recognized that the NAF saw Gosnell’s operation first hand but did not report it places the NAF in a position of culpability,” said Newman. “Now they have decided to cut and run to avoid responsibility for enabling Gosnell’s criminal enterprise to continue. This is an indication that the NAF is more concerned about maintaining the façade of respectability than protecting the lives and health of women.”

The NAF revoked the membership of Atlantic Women’s Services in Wilmington, Delaware, where Gosnell worked one day per week. He started dangerous late-term abortions there, then referred women to his Philadelphia “house of horrors” abortion clinic for the completion of the abortions.

Also tossed under the bus by the NAF this week was the Atlantic Women’s Services in Dover, Delaware, and the Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, also owned by Brinkley. The Delta Clinic once employed Eileen O’Neill, who was arrested and charged with Gosnell in Philadelphia. The Delta Clinic has been flagged with so many health violations that the American Catholic Lawyers Association threatened in January to file legal action against the state if the mill is not closed.

In addition, Operation Rescue has learned that troubled late-term abortionist James S. Pendergraft IV has also been dropped from the NAF rolls. Last year Pendergraft suffered a double suspension of his Florida medical license for a horrifically botched abortion, drug violations, and charges of using unlicensed workers to illegally perform medical tasks for which they were not trained or qualified. Pendergraft recently opened a late-term “fetal lethal injection” mill in the Washington, D.C. area where he kills pre-born babies in the womb by injecting them with poison, then sends the women back to their home states for the removal of the dead babies’ remains.

“This mass disassociation is a desperate attempt at self-preservation for the NAF, which is known to harbor among the worst abortion mills in the U.S.,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “These clinics represent just a small sampling of the squalid and criminal operations working under the auspices of the NAF.”

Also no longer on the NAF rolls is the Metropolitan Medical Associates in Englewood, New Jersey, that made headlines this week when a Planned Parenthood official was seen in an undercover sting video assuring a supposed pimp that he could take his under-15-year old prostitutes to that clinic for abortions with no questions asked.

Metropolitan is no stranger to trouble. It was once closed by the state for nearly a month after a botched abortion there in 2006. Violations discovered at Metropolitan included the absence of hot water for more than a year, a scrub sink for sterilization, a mechanical ventilator, and emergency drugs. Rasheedah Dinkins sued Metropolitan and the NAF after she suffered massive loss of blood from a uterine rupture during a second trimester abortion that resulted in a stroke, a collapsed lung, a tracheotomy, and a hysterectomy. At the hospital, she was placed on a respirator and suffered a coma that lasted three weeks. Dinkins settled the case for a whopping $1.9 million dollars.

There is no evidence that the NAF reported any of the abuses found at this or any other of their affiliates.

Yet another NAF affiliated clinic made headlines last November after its owner Romeo Ferrer, closed his Gynecare Center abortion clinic in Severna Park, Maryland, and surrendered his medical license after being charged by the Maryland Board of Physicians in the death of Denise Crowe during a botched abortion in 2006.

Notorious abortionist Steven Chase Brigham was also once a proud and prominent NAF member. Brigham’s 20 years of medical malpractice, which included botched and illegal abortions, reached crisis proportions last year when his New Jersey medical license was suspended for conducting an illegal bi-state late-term abortion racket. After a horrifically botched abortion tipped off authorities, police raided his secret late-term mill in Elkton, Maryland, and found the bodies of 35 aborted babies, one as old as 31 weeks. Brigham is not and has never been licensed to practice in Maryland. Criminal charges are likely.

Yet another former NAF member, abortionist Malachy DeHenre was convicted in 2008 for killing his wife. But that was not the only woman DeHenre killed. In 2003, Leigh Ann Stephens Alford died from uterine perforation and hemorrhagic shock during an abortion by him at the Summit Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama. The NAF affiliate closed in 2006, after an unlicensed clinic worker gave the abortion pill, RU486, to a late-term abortion patient who, six days later, delivered a six pound, four ounce dead baby at the hospital emergency room. She was later arrested and charged. Summit surrendered its license rather reveal to the investigating authorities the shoddy conditions that existed there.

Meanwhile, current NAF member LeRoy Carhart remains under investigation in two states. In Nebraska, former clinic employees came forward and told of illegal activity and unsafe conditions at his dilapidated abortion mill in Bellevue, including accusations of illegal late-term abortions. In Maryland, the Board of Physicians is investigating the possibility that Carhart lied to get licensed in that state. Documents obtained by Operation Rescue show that he indicated he was a university professor and emergency room doctor, even though he has had no affiliation with any hospital since 1987. While committing late-term abortions in Kansas in 2005, Carhart botched a third-trimester abortion on a Down syndrome teen, Christin Gilbert, causing to her death.

It would not be surprising if Carhart was the next disgraced NAF member to be suddenly exocised from their dwindling membership rolls.

“We know first-hand what membership in the National Abortion Federation really means,” said Newman. “When we bought and closed Central Women’s Services in Wichita, Kansas, in 2006, we nearly gagged at the stench when we first entered the building. The conditions were appalling.”

Operation Rescue discovered filthy and dangerous conditions that included mold and pest infestations, filthy carpeting, leaky plumbing, out-of-code electrical jury-rigging, and a clogged sink in a room where “biohazard” material was handled and stored. After documenting the conditions at the NAF approved clinic, Operation Rescue completely renovated the building and it now serves as its National Headquarters.

“Other examples of abortion crimes and violations at member NAF clinics could fill a book,” said Newman. “The National Abortion Federation needs to be investigated by Federal authorities for its part in enabling dangerous conditions and criminal activity at its member abortion clinics. There is no doubt that the NAF knows about additional clinics that are currently committing abortion abuses, but is refusing to report them, just as they did not report Gosnell or any of the other mills that they are now trying to put at arm’s length. They need to be held responsible for what amounts to a massive abortion abuse cover up nationwide.”