Annapolis, MD — Over 6,000 of citizen complaints against late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart were successfully delivered to the Maryland Board of Physicians yesterday by representatives of Students for Life in America. The complaints were in support of a formal complaint filed on February 19, 2013, by Operation Rescue seeking license revocation for Carhart in the death of 28-year old Jennifer Morbelli.
Morbelli had sought an abortion at Carhart’s late-term abortion clinic in Germantown, Maryland, at 33-weeks into her pregnancy after her pre-born daughter, Madison, was diagnosed with a seizure disorder. After her abortion, Carhart left Maryland and could not be reached by Morbelli’s family when her condition deteriorated later that night. The next day, February 7, Morbelli was taken to Shady Grove Hospital where she eventually died from massive internal bleeding. Hospital staff also failed to reach Carhart, which complicated and delayed the diagnosis of her condition and appropriate treatment that might have saved her life.
Mrs. Morbelli’s autopsy report has yet to be released two and a half months after her death.
During the first attempt to deliver the thousands of citizen signatures to the Maryland Board of Physicians, the complaints were rejected and the pro-life activists were turned away. Yesterday, the boxes of complaints were finally accepted.
“We thank everyone who signed on to the complaint and helped us bring public pressure to bear on the Maryland Board of Physicians, but we need to keep the pressure up to ensure that Carhart is properly investigated and disciplined for Morbelli’s death. This Board has shown that it is willing to do the right thing, but only after the public demands it,” said Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation.
Carhart was earlier involved in the death of another third-trimester abortion patient, Christin Gilbert, in 2005. He was publicly accused by several of his Nebraska clinic workers of unsafe and illegal abortion practices in 2009 in a case that was dismissed for political reasons. More recently, in 2011, Carhart was issued an admonishment letter by the Maryland Board of Physicians after Operation Rescue complained that he lied on an application in order to gain licensure in that state.
“Unless authorities bring Carhart to justice, he will kill again,” said Newman. “We will continue to press forward to with our demands for justice through the legal system until we are sure that Carhart can never again hurt another living soul and that the tragedy that befell Jennifer Morbelli and her daughter Madison Leigh, will never happen again.”