Operation Rescue, which worked for years to expose Rutland, celebrates the victory for women and babies

Sacramento, California — The Medical Board of California has made an agreement with troubled abortionist Andrew Rutland to surrender his medical license on February, 11, 2011, ending a long and sordid career.

“This decision was many years in coming. It is a victory for women and babies who will never have to be subjected to his shoddy, back-alley practices. It is also a victory for the pro-life movement since Rutland is a character we have followed and attempted to expose for years,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, whose group has frequently called for the revocation of his medical license.

Rutland was first licensed in California in 1973. His license was revoked in 2002 after two babies died due to his negligence. At that time he was also charged with, frightening women into agreeing to unnecessary hysterectomies, botching surgeries, lying to patients, falsifying medical records, over-prescribing painkillers and having sex with a patient in his office.

In 2007, Rutland reapplied and was granted a new license.

“This was a huge mistake by the board,” said Newman. “It ended up costing one woman her life. I think it would be tough to sleep at night knowing that.”

Perhaps that is why the Board aggressively pursued Rutland after 30-year old Ying Chen died from a reaction to anesthesia at a dirty San Gabriel acupuncture clinic in August, 2009. It attempted to suspend his license on an emergency basis, but a Judge instead ordered Rutland not to commit surgical abortions while allowing him to continue prescribing the abortion pill.

Operation Rescue caught Rutland offering abortion appointments and reported him to the Medical Board.

In June of last year, the medical examiner reclassified Chen’s death as a homicide. The Board filed an amended complaint to reflect that. The Board charged that Rutland did not adequately secure Chen’s consent for a second trimester abortion or recognize the severity of her condition. He attempted the abortion at an unsafe facility that did not have proper emergency equipment or trained staff, and did not call for emergency care in a timely manner.

Rutland has not been criminally charged, and in his surrender agreement, Rutland did not admit to guilt on the homicide count. The District Attorney told reporters that a criminal case is under investigation.

This news comes on the heels of the arrest of the arrests of Kermit Gosnell and nine of his employees for murder and other violations of the law of an eerily similar nature to Rutland’s.

“The political climate that has shielded abortions for decades is changing. Boards and prosecutors who once yawned at allegations of abortion abuses are now turning a keen eye toward them,” said Newman. “These cases send a strong message to abortionists everywhere that they are no longer above the law.”

Read the Surrender Order and Complaint

Baton Rouge, Louisiana – A troubled Louisiana abortion clinic has ties to accused murderer Kermit Gosnell, according to a Pennsylvania grand jury report.

The Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge is the former employer of Gosnell employee Eileen O’Neill, who was arrested last week along with Gosnell and charged with criminal violations that include Theft by Deception for pretending to be a licensed physician and charging fees as such, Racketeering, Corruption, Perjury, and False Swearing. O’Neill was present during the abortion death of Karnamaya Mongar and, according to the grand jury report, lied to authorities in order to cover up the truth about Mongar’s death.

The American Catholic Lawyers Association was in Baton Rouge last week and threatened a lawsuit if the Delta Clinic is not shut down. (See news video below from 01/20/11.) Those attorneys indicate that an internal report made by the Department of Health and Hospitals lists numerous violations at the Delta Clinic that more that warrant closure. The DHH continues to make excuses for conditions at Delta, much the same way regulators in Pennsylvania turned a blind eye to complaints about Gosnell in what the grand jury there described as a “complete regulatory collapse.”

Delta has a long history going back at least to 1998 of violations and filthy conditions of a similar nature found at Gosnell’s “house of horrors” in Philadelphia. Two women, Ingar Weber and Shelia Hebert, are known to have died from botched abortions they received at Delta. Attorneys threatening to sue the DHH say that not much has changed at the clinic, and it still poses a danger to the public.

Delta was accused last year by the DHH of failing to ensure the clinic had a “quality assurance program.” The report indicated that the clinic did not provide women adequate protections for their privacy and did not monitor patients receiving sedation “regarding their cardiac status, respiratory status and level of consciousness during the medical procedure.”

“These violations are of the same kind that Gosnell stands accused. The grand jury was troubled by medical records laying about his clinic that could be accessed by anyone including other patients. It was a similar lack of monitoring of patients under sedation that contributed to the death of Karnamaya Mongar,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “There are disturbing similarities between the Delta Clinic and Gosnell’s operation.”

Aside from sharing a similar history of dangerous abortion practices, there are disturbing connections between Delta and Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society.

Gosnell co-defendant Eileen O’Neill worked for the Delta Clinic from 1998-roughly 2000, during the time when the clinic was exposed as a danger to the public. She told the Philadelphia grand jury that her work at the Delta Clinic was a “side job” while she was living in Texas and that she had relinquished a medical license she held in Louisiana due to what she called “post traumatic stress,” which speaks volumes about her time at Delta.

O’Neill was introduced to Gosnell by Delta’s owner, Leroy Brinkley, who also owns Atlantic Women’s Services in Wilmington, Delaware, where Gosnell worked one day per week. Like Gosnell, Brinkley also does business the Philadelphia area. Even though Gosnell was well aware that she had no license of any kind, Gosnell hired O’Neill in 2002, and allowed her to practice medicine without a license at his Philadelphia abortion mill. One can only wonder how much Brinkley knew of this criminal arrangement.

O’Neill was apparently accustomed to the substandard conditions she found with her new employer after her experience at Delta. She never thought to complain about the illegal and dangerous activity at either clinic, and in fact is charged with perjury for lying about details of Mongar’s death as well as her true role in Gosnell’s “criminal enterprise.”

The grand jury investigating Gosnell’s operation noted that at times, Gosnell would begin late-term abortions at the Atlantic Women’s Services in Wilmington and complete the abortions at his clinic in Philadelphia, a practice apparently tolerated by Brinkley. The report especially noted an incident with a teen-aged patient the grand jury simply called “Sue,” who appeared to Gosnell’s staff to be “seven or eight months pregnant.” Gosnell collected his $2,500 fee and inserted laminaria into Sue while at Brinkley’s Wilmington, Delaware, abortion clinic, and instructed her to be at his Philadelphia clinic by 9:00 AM the next day. Interstate abortions such as this were also employed by discredited abortionist Steven Chase Brigham, prompting the State of Maryland to consider legislation to ban the dangerous practice.

After 13 painful hours in labor, Sue delivered “Baby Boy A,” an infant so large that Gosnell joked that he could walk Gosnell to the bus stop. Even though he was alive and moving, Gosnell “snipped” his spinal cord and tossed him into a shoe box, where he continued to move until he died. Experts estimated Baby Boy A was at least 32 weeks gestation, if not more.

Sue suffered complications that Gosnell dismissed. Eventually, after days of suffering and pain, Sue was rushed to a legitimate hospital where she was treated for life-threatening complications. She nearly died. After a week and a half in the hospital, Sue remained painfully thin and took months to recover from her ordeal.

The Atlantic Women’s Services in Wilmington where Gosnell began Sue’s illegal late-term abortion is a member of the National Abortion Federation (NAF), a group that claims to hold its member abortion clinics to high standards, yet time and again is found to harbor among the most dangerous clinics in the country. Brinkley’s other troubled abortion business, the Delta Clinic in Baton Rouge is also a proud NAF member.

The Pennsylvania grand jury was troubled that an NAF staff member did not report violations she witnessed at Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion mill in 2009, and recommended that the NAF disassociate from the Atlantic Women’s Services due to their complicity in Gosnell’s illegal and dangerous bi-state late-term abortion practice for which they had evidence of at least six patients whose abortion were begun illegally there. As of this writing, the NAF has yet to comply.

“Out of one side of their mouths the NAF and even state agencies like the Louisiana DHH and the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine give lips service to women’s health, yet are as culpable as the abortionist themselves in propagating dangerous conditions at abortion mills by minimizing the severity of the violations and the impact they have on women’s health,” said Newman.

“Operation Rescue calls for the immediate closure of the Atlantic Women’s Services in Wilmington, Delaware, and the Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge in Louisiana. We support the American Catholic Lawyers Association’s intent to file a lawsuit to force the closure of Delta, and urge them to file it will all haste, in order to protect women, since the state apparently will not,” said Newman.

“We rebuke the National Abortion Federation for endangering the lives and health of women by passing off unsafe abortion ‘chop shops’ as legitimate medical facilities. Everyone needs to wake up and realize that covering up the abortionists’ dirty little secrets only creates an environment where sick and unscrupulous people like Gosnell, O’Neill, Brinkley, and others who prey on vulnerable women as a matter of course, can thrive. It is innocent babies and women like Karnamaya Mongar, Ingar Weber, and Shelia Hebert who pay for the deception with their lives, and for that, the NAF and other abortion organizations should be held legally responsible. Until the cover-ups cease, we can only expect the body count to rise.”

DO MORE: Please Contact DHH at 225-342-0132 or 866-280-7737 and demand the closure of Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge.

Washington, DC – On the 38th memorial of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that decriminalized abortion in America, Operation Rescue’s Abortion Whistleblower’s Program will present a check to former abortion worker Kim Nichols for $25,000 as a reward for information which led to the arrest and conviction of an abortionist who broke the law.

Nichols came forward to blow the whistle on her former boss, abortionist Rapin Osathanondh, after Laura Hope Smith died from an abortion at Osathanondh’s Hyannis, Massachusetts, abortion clinic in 2007.

Nichols will be presented with the $25,000 reward at a pro-life rally on Saturday, January 22, 2011, at 7:00 PM at the Neelsville Presbyterian Church, 20701 Frederick Road, Germantown, MD 20876.

Wracked with guilt over Laura’s needless death and refusing to go along with Osathanondh’s illegal efforts to conceal his negligence, Nichols worked with Laura’s mother, Eileen Smith, to bring Osathanondh to justice. In turn, Smith was advised by Operation Rescue.

“Due to Nichol’s courageous and truthful testimony before the Massachusetts Board of Physicians, Osathanondh was declared a danger to the public. His two abortion clinics were closed and he surrendered his medical license, rather than suffer the humiliation of revocation. Nichol’s testimony was the basis for criminal charges that resulted in Osathanondh’s conviction and incarceration on the charge of involuntary manslaughter for causing the death of Laura Smith. She did all of this while enduring threats and harassment from Osathanondh who attempted to frighten and intimidate her into silence,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “We are proud to present our first $25,000 reward to Kim Nichols and pray that her brave commitment to the truth encourages other clinic workers who have witnessed abortion abuses to do the right thing and tell the authorities what they know.”

Read Nichol’s dramatic story, “Blowing the Whistle: How one abortion worker allowed the truth to set her free–and put an abortionist behind bars.”

The Abortion Whistleblower’s program provides a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of abortionists who are breaking the law. Operation Rescue acknowledges that credible information concerning abortion abuses in several states has already been received from several abortion industry insiders. That information is currently working its way through the system.

To learn more about the Abortion Whistleblowers Program, please follow the link.