Live Action Undercover Video Enters World of Abortionist LeRoy Carhart

By Melissa Barnhart, Managing Editor Wednesday, May 08, 2013

2 photos(Photo: AP Images / Nati Harnik, File) This June 2, 2009 file photo shows Dr. LeRoy Carhart wearing a black arm band during a news conference in his office in Bellevue, Neb. The Nebraska doctor said Wednesday that he will perform third-term abortions in Kansas after the slaying of abortion provider George Tiller, but declined to say whether his plans include opening a new facility or offering the procedure at an existing practice.

Warning: Graphic material

Pro-life group Live Action has released the fourth of six undercover videos as part of their project, titled "Inhuman: Undercover in America's Late-Term Abortion Industry," that exposes late-term abortion practices in clinics throughout the United States.

In the fourth video, abortionist LeRoy Carhart, who performs second trimester abortions at his Nebraska clinic and second and third trimester abortions at his Maryland clinic, is shown describing the three-day abortion procedure to an investigator who is 22 weeks pregnant. Carhart says the dead baby's body that will lay inside the womb for two to three days, is "like putting meat in a crock pot, ... in a slow cooker."

During a second undercover investigation at Carhart's Nebraska clinic, he jokes that if a baby isn't delivered at the end of a three-day abortion procedure, he will use a whole bunch of tools to pull the baby out of the womb piece by piece, such as a "drill bit and pickaxe," as he describes the procedure to a Live Action investigator who is 26 weeks pregnant.

Carhart also assures the patient that by having an abortion, she won't experience post-abortion depression, whereas women who keep their babies sometimes experience postpartum depression.

"Postpartum depression is really very common," Carhart said, "but post-abortion depression? I can honestly tell you that I haven't seen one – one person that way." He added that he performed an abortion on a 16-year-old girl who, after the procedure, tried to commit suicide, but survived after receiving life-saving treatment at a local hospital. "She tried to kill herself, not because of the termination, but because of the baby that she had before this. It was already a year old, and she wished she hadn't had that baby."

Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, a pro-life group based in Arlington, Va., told The Christian Post on Wednesday that Carhart's statements revealed in the Live Action undercover video are "shocking" and "brutal the way Carhart describes this little victim. The only thing more powerful than his words is that this is what he's actually doing."

"For Carhart to say that women don't suffer from post-abortion depression is absurd and irresponsible," Rose said about the abortionist who was among the four late-term abortion doctors profiled in the documentary film "After Tiller" that premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. "Carhart is not a psychiatrist and he doesn't provide after-care counseling … it's unfair and callous for him to say women won't suffer after having an abortion."

Rose's investigative video also reveals that although Carhart mentions that a woman had died in his clinic, he tells the patient who is 26 weeks pregnant that that woman died due to complications from her pregnancy, and not the abortion procedure that he performed on her.

"We have had one woman die in the clinic," Carhart said. "... it was reported to the coroner and everything, and they said, 'yeah, she died again of complications with the pregnancy but not from the abortion.' Everything from the abortion went fine."

According to Rose, Carhart "… outright lies when he claims that his patient, Jennifer Morbelli, died of complications in her pregnancy rather than from his abortion. …The video also exposes Carhart's bogus claims that 'all the late abortions he has done in Germantown have involved fetuses with anomalies.' He was perfectly willing to schedule a late-term abortion for a perfectly healthy pregnant woman and baby."

In February, Jennifer Morbelli, a substitute teacher from Westchester County, N.Y., who was eight months pregnant, died following the late-term abortion performed by Carhart. The Maryland Board of Physicians is conducting an investigation into the death of Morbelli, and Carhart is allowed to continue his practice at both his Nebraska and Maryland abortion clinics.

Pro-life groups have long protested Carhart and his "back alley" style abortion practices. Former employees at his Nebraska clinic revealed earlier that they were instructed to insert IV needles and give intravenous medication to patients even though they were not a registered nurse or a certified licensed practical nurse. They have also described unsanitary conditions at Carhart's clinic.

Rose believes it's of vital importance for the public to see what's taking place at abortion clinics and for people to hear how women and babies are being treated. Since the first release of the Washington, D.C., Bronx, N.Y., and Phoenix, Ariz., videos last week, Rose said she has received a lot of feedback from teenagers and young women who are disturbed by the industry's practices and want to get involved in the pro-life movement.

Last week, Live Action released videos (www.liveaction.org/inhuman) of a Bronx abortion counselor describing how a born-alive baby would be placed in a jar of toxic "solution" to ensure death, a D.C. doctor who would leave a baby born alive after a botched abortion to die, and a Phoenix clinic worker who "would not resuscitate" should a baby be born alive after a failed abortion. The videos are part of Live Action's six-month undercover investigation shedding light on the illegal and inhuman practices of numerous abortion centers throughout the country.