“A partial victory for life”

SEE UPDATE BELOW!

Harrisburg, PA — A representative of the Pennsylvania Health Department contacted Operation Rescue today with additional information on the status of the ordered closure of four Pennsylvania abortion clinics operated by disgraced abortionist Steven Chase Brigham.

Brigham has transferred ownership of his clinics in Allentown and Pittsburgh to Rose Health Services. Brigham’s Health Department order stated that clinics controlled by him could no longer provide abortions. Since Rose Health Services is not controlled by Brigham, those two clinics will unfortunately be allowed to remain open.

Transferring ownership from one corporation to another has been a tactic used by Brigham in the past to avoid responsibility for his nefarious conduct.

However, Brigham’s clinics in Erie and State College have been ordered to immediately stop doing abortions. The clinics are allowed to remain open for services other than abortion.

Operation Rescue has confirmed that, as of this time, the Erie and State College clinics are not accepting appointments for abortions. Those clinics have in fact remained open for other services.

“This is a partial victory for life,” said Troy Newman. “We are thankful that babies are not being killed at the Erie and State College clinics. We are very grateful to our supporters who took the time to make calls and made this victory possible. At the same time we are very disappointed a shady business transfer has kept the other two clinics open. After all the trouble that Brigham has had and continues to face, he is not fit to operate in Pennsylvania or any other state. We will continue to work through legal channels to insure the public is protected from this dangerous man.”

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UPDATED on 7/26/2010: Operation Rescue has received new information from Tim Broderick with People for Life in Erie, PA. Tim informs us that while the buildings in Erie and State College where Brigham had operated abortion clinics are still owned by him, those clinics have been closed for some time. Phone numbers to those locations go into a central phone exchange, giving the appearance that the offices remain open when they in fact are not. It is clear from conversations with the Pennsylvania Department of Health, from reading a recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and from undercover calls made by us that Brigham is attempting to keep up the appearance that these clinics remain open, possibly to get business from these areas that they can later funnel to their open office in Allentown. It is a shady business practice that is false advertising at best, and meant to deceive vulnerable women.

Tim also told Operation Rescue that there are indications that Brigham may still be under investigation in Pennsylvania since a state agent came to the People for Life office within the past few days seeking information about the Erie clinic. In any case, we rejoice that abortions are not being done at the Brigham locations in Erie and State College. We appreciate the work of People for Life and Tim Broderick and thank them for their vigilance on behalf of the pre-born.

Calls needed to urge Health Department to enforce closure order

Allentown, PA – An abortionist whose state medical license was surrendered in 1992 has been ordered by the Pennsylvania Department of Health (PDH) to close his four abortion clinics that are currently operating in that state.

Operation Rescue has confirmed that the abortion clinics have indeed snubbed the Health Department order and remain open and taking patients – a move that could endanger the safety of women.

The Department of Health ordered troubled abortionist Steven Chase Brigham to close his clinics that operate under the banner of American Women’s Services. The clinics are located in Allentown, Erie, Pittsburgh, and State College. Even though he has not been licensed in Pennsylvania since 1992, he continues to control the clinics there.

The clinics were ordered to close after Health Department officials determined that they repeatedly and intentionally hired unlicensed abortionists and clinic workers, in violation of Pennsylvania law.

“Brigham isn’t the only abortionist who maintains the practice of hiring unlicensed workers. Based on our research into the shoddy practices of the abortion cartel, few of them actually have the proper staffing with the proper credentials. The practice is epidemic and puts the lives of women in grave danger,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “Brigham is just one who has been caught.”

Currently there is some confusion over whether the PDH can actually close Brigham’s Pennsylvania abortion clinics, and what the next steps are in the event that the order is enforced.

Brigham had transferred ownership of the clinics to an elderly woman in Ohio in order to avoid the closures. However, Robert Torres, Deputy Secretary at the Department of Health ruled that any transfer of permission to run the abortion clinics “would be void.”

A Philadelphia Inquirer story published July 21, 2010, indicated that Brigham, who operates 15 abortion clinics in four states, could be forced to close all of his clinics due to an IRS tax lien for failure to pay payroll taxes totaling $234,536 between 2002 and 2006. Requests for collection of the unpaid taxes have been ignored.

Brigham has been on the wrong side of the law throughout his entire 24-year career. He voluntarily retired his medical license in Pennsylvania while under investigation just six years after graduating from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1986. Since then four other states have barred him from practicing medicine including New York, California, Florida, and Georgia. He served 120 days in jail in 1998 for Medicaid fraud.

Brigham lost his New York license after lacerating the cervix, uterine artery and uterus of a 20-year old patient and taking hours to realize it. The patient eventually suffered an emergency hysterectomy in what the Heath Department described as a ‘life-threatening’ incident in which Brigham did not seem to understand the severity of the situation.

A New Jersey judge ordered Brigham to stop advertising his abortions as “painless” and “safe.”

Even the National Abortion Federation had thrown Brigham under the bus, issuing a statement agreeing with the Pennsylvania order to close his clinics.

“When the NAF won’t have you, you know it’s bad, since the NAF runs some of the nastiest, most dangerous abortion clinics in the country,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. OR’s national headquarters is housed in a building that once served as an NAF-approved abortion clinic. Documentation of the filthy and unsafe conditions that met with NAF approval can be viewed here.

Yet, despite his problems, Brigham continues to operate clinics in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. He holds a current medical license only in New Jersey, where he has also been disciplined.

Operation Rescue is asking the public to urge the PDH to immediately enforce their order and close Brigham’s four Pennsylvania abortion clinics. Please contact the Secretary Pennsylvania Department of Health, Everette James, at 717-787-6436.

Read the PDH Order

Radio commentary reveals that many women are under-informed about pregnancy, and those who receive information are less likely to abort.

By Cheryl Sullenger

There’s a saying that ignorance is bliss, and apparently that is the motto that the abortion cartel lives by. Abortionists in Nebraska and Oklahoma have challenged abortion regulations that were meant to give women as much information as possible and help identify risk factors that may cause women to double-think their abortion decisions.

Laws like these are bad for the abortion business, and a recent conversation with the director of a pregnancy resource center next door to Operation Rescue’s national headquarters supports that assertion.

In fact, what she tells us is shocking.

“Women just don’t know,” the director tells us. Women she sees every day are unaware of the development of the babies inside their wombs. She says that they are surprised to learn that the heart is beating or that their baby in the first trimester has arms and legs, fingers and toes, or that their baby is already a boy or a girl.

Newman has produced a 1-minute radio spot concerning this topic for his “Take a Minute for Life” program that airs regularly on the Bott Radio Network.

Abortionists want women to have as little information as possible because when women discover the truth about their baby and the risk factors that abortion presents to women, they are less likely to get abortions. And that means more money out of the pockets of an abortion cartel that is facing a dwindling demand for their services.

That is particularly true when it comes to pre-abortion ultrasound legislation. Some statistics show that 85 percent of abortion-minded women who view their baby’s image on ultrasound will not go through with the abortion.

“Any industry that loses 85 percent of their business is not going to survive,” said Newman. “They have a vested interest in concealing the truth from women. They prey on those who are not fully informed and are therefore vulnerable. Women’s advocacy groups should be outraged that pregnant women are exploited in this manner.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights, a legal group that works to insulate abortionists from having to comply with the law, argued in Oklahoma argued that the legislature voted to “abuse” women by requiring them to view an ultrasound of their baby prior to an abortion.

“It is ludicrous to say that educating women is abuse. This just illustrates how desperate they are to keep women in the dark and easy prey for an abortion cartel that literally banks on women having as little information as possible,” said Newman.

While the abortionists in Nebraska and Oklahoma have won round one concerning their current abortion laws, there is no doubt that the truth will eventually win out.

In fact, Nebraska one abortion law went into effect last week that bans abortions after 21 weeks, when a baby is known to feel pain.

“There is fear and reluctance by abortionists to tackle this law because there is a good possibility they could lose at the Supreme Court level, and that would redefine the way abortion is regulated, and could even erode Roe v. Wade, either partially or completely,” said Newman. “They know that the tide is turning against them and, as a recent New York Times article reported, it startles them.”

America is indeed becoming more pro-life as more information about the pre-born baby and the appalling state of the nation’s abortion mills becomes public. State legislators are starting to get it, and are doing what they can to protect women from abortion exploitation. Eventually the local judiciaries will catch up. And when all women are given free access to the truth, the end of abortion will not be far behind.