A Non-Fatal Carhart-Associated Lawsuit

Background on Carhart

Leroy Carhart, who has since gone to meet his Maker, was an absolute hero among abortion-rights activists due to his willingness to do abortions at any stage of pregnancy as long as there was some semblance of a justification. 

Two of those late abortions left the patients dead under what I consider totally inexcusable circumstances:

Christin Gilbert

Christin Gilbert was an intellectually-disabled teenager whose third-trimester abortion was justified on "health" grounds, though aside from having Down syndrome Christin was perfectly healthy. Carhart was aborting Christin's baby at the supposedly saintly George Tiller's clinic. Per Tiller's practice, Christin -- whose health and life were supposedly in such danger that her viable unborn baby had to die to save her -- was spending nights at a nearby motel that Tiller used as a sort of annex. When she collapsed and lost consciousness, her parents used a luggage cart to take her out to the minivan so they could drive her to the clinic, where she went into cardio-respiratory arrest. Carhart's grasp of how to perform CPR was so rudimentary that the medics thought he was a bystander and had to chase him away from his patient so that they could make appropriate attempts to save his patient. To no avail. Christin went into a coma and her parents withdrew life support.

Jennifer McKenna-Morbelli

Jennifer McKenna-Morbelli went to Carhart's Germantown Reproductive Health Services in Maryland to abort their 33-week loved and wanted baby due to a prenatal diagnosis. At this stage of pregnancy, the baby is killed with an overdose of digoxin, a cardiac drug, that is injected directly into the baby's heart. Once Carhart confirms that the baby is dead he induces labor. Prolifers outside the facility reported seeing Jennifer enter the facility on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. On that last day she appeared pale and weak and was at the facility for over nine hours. After Jennifer left, Carhart and his wife left the state to go work at another abortion facility. At the hotel that Carhart used as an annex, like his mentor George Tiller, Jennifer suffered chest pain. She was unsuccessful in her attempts to reach Carhart, per instructions that in the event of complications she was to call clinic staff rather than go to the emergency room. In fact, an emergency number Carhart provided actually rang to the answering machine for his wife's equestrian supply business. Jennifer died of her complications.

Another young woman, whose aunt gave her the pseudonym "Haley Mason," described a dismal experience when, under pressure from the baby's father, she went to Carhart's Nebraska clinic for an abortion. Unable to cope afterward, she took her own life.

So this is the kind of "care" a "hero" provides.

So let's look at a case where a woman was fortunate enough to escape with her life. Hat tip to Operation Rescue.

Haimanot Aragaw went to Carhart's facility in Bethesda, Maryland on May 20, 2020, accompanied by her husband, Abel Woldemedhen. The couple had decided to abort their 23-week unborn baby because the child had been diagnosed prenatally with Down syndrome. 

On that day, clinic staff performed an ultrasound, noting that the placenta was in a "posterior position." Staff gave Haimanot oral medications then inserted laminaria to dilate her cervix. 

Haimanot then went to a nearby motel. She experienced pelvic pain and vaginal discharge during the night. She reported this when she returned to the clinic the next day and was reassured that this was normal. 

Anh-Chi Dang Do

Haimanot was given additional medications that was supposed to help further dilate her cervix. Then Dr. Anh-Chi Dang Do removed the laminaria. Haimanot began to blead heavily.

As Do suctioned out amniotic fluid and began dismembering Haimanot's unborn baby, the patient began to bleed so heavily, that according to the lawsuit the couple later filed, both Do and other staff were spattered with blood.

Carhart was called in to assist. In spite of their efforts, they were unable to remove the entire fetus or to stop the blood loss, so they called Montgomery County Fire and Rescue to take Haimanot to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital.

Haimanot was in critical condition and taken immediately to the operating room. Her cervix had nearly been torn off, with only about 1/3 of it still intact. Her mangled unborn baby was in her abdominal cavity behind her uterus. The baby was missing its arms and most of its right leg, and its head was torn nearly off. 

Do had also managed to damage Haimanot's appendix.

The only way to get the bleeding under control was to remove the entire uterus. 

Haimanot and Abel sued the doctors and the facility, alleging not just injury but lack of informed consent. They asserted that had she known of the risk of the damage to her uterus and appendix, and the loss of her ability to ever have another baby, Haimanot would never have consented to the abortion.

Sadly, the lawsuit doesn't mention that she never would have consented to the abortion had she known that her baby would be torn limb from limb.