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GLORIA.TV

13 February 16

Last week LeRoy Carhart did what he says he hasn’t done in 10 years: He allowed his name in print to announce a speaking engagement at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University, an hour from his late-term abortion business in Germantown, Maryland. He took note of the security precautions.

“Thank you so much for coming,” was repeated again and again as students and providers came forward to ask a wide range of questions of Carhart, referring to himself as one of four U.S. doctors who had already developed an injection to bring fetal demise, outwitting “the antis” who he describes as using the courts for no reason other than seeking to limit abortion access.

Topics for the evening included his perspective on a soon to be argued Supreme Court case, the future of tele-med abortion (where abortion pills are dispensed from a drawer with a doctor on a computer screen somewhere else in the country), his greatest rewards and challenges, to name a few.

From several things he says, it becomes clear how he wants to be known: The go-to guy when women are certain that fetal demise is their desire.

He has taken a financial hit, giving up a, “one-week-on, two-weeks-off” arrangement in Nebraska and picking up in Maryland that he says is unlikely to successfully challenge laws that have codified Roe and Doe.

He has lived as if a prisoner in his own home like the program, “Madame Secretary” (I have to admit, I’ve never seen it) and changes his routine regularly so as to not be predictable.

He won’t give up performing abortions for anything, but differentiates between “unplanned” (which he said he does not do) and life-threatening as well as psychologically unwanted. “The women know what they need. You just have to be there for them.” He later takes back his claim to not abort unplanned babies by quipping we are probably all the result of an unplanned pregnancy but, “Once you’ve decided, ‘I need an abortion,’ then I need to see you.”

He really cares, and has gone to great lengths for his love. Are you getting that impression?

But who is his love, really?

At one point he throws men under the bus, but not out of their lack of support of women with children, but because they get away with ditching their children from conception to age 21 but the woman isn’t so fortunate.

He speaks of supporting women, whatever their decision, and says, “She’s welcome to take anyone’s input.” Yet this is contradicted by his infamous policy, using hired security if needed to tell clients and those who accompany them, if they’re as much as seen speaking to counselors their appointment will be cancelled.

Abortion guards

On one occasion an officer abruptly halted a conversation where a driver was sharing with a counselor about his painful experience of miscarriage. On another occasion, a couple who was deeply conflicted and facing a poor prenatal diagnosis was left standing in the parking lot and watched the staff lock the office and leave together and the senior staff person saying no more than, “Excuse me, I need to get by.”

Staff leaves in parking lot couple deeply convicted

He goes in to great detail about the serious security risks not only for him but for his staff and patients. Yet then carries on about how the world just isn’t a forgiving place and attending Virginia Tech or working at a 7-Eleven convenience store is equally as dangerous. His staff have been seen casually laughing and joking, strolling down the sidewalk to a trash bin, the hired security making no effort to accompany them.

And then he says at another time that only the same eight people have opposed him for the past 15 years.

Catholic fighting evil

When asked if he provides mental health support he says he only refers women out. At this point he seeks obvious deception by saying women never need help because of their abortion, but only because of what it took to get there for an abortion. Tell that to this young teen, left weeping in the parking lot alone after her late-term procedure.

Teen mother weeping after her late-term abortion

He’s a bit like a demented Don Quixote, so consumed in confused chivalry that he simply can’t kill enough, a circuit rider working 7 days a week.

At one point someone suggests there’s talk that he is exhausted and a question is asked whether there are regulations dictating how long he can work. He is puzzled at the suggestion and says he doesn’t think he has ever been impaired. The next day he sent his third client in 7 weeks to hospital by ambulance with unstoppable bleeding.

Ambulance, Mid-December, 2015

Ambulance, Mid-January, 2016

Ambulance, February 4, 2016

When explaining the pointlessness of making partial birth abortion illegal LeRoy Carhart explains that virtually every abortion results in part of the baby being removed before the baby dies. This is his matter-of-fact solution for women who he insists can’t be good mothers and also develop as they should or the woman’s parents who would prefer to be grandparents, not parents a second time. It’s just no problem to kill them, pull them out in pieces, and neatly box their bodies to await the pick-up truck to take them to the local incinerator.

Boxed babies are brought to the incinerator

I can agree with LeRoy Carhart saying the world is an unforgiving place. Can we recognize that as we regard the unborn, we are coming to regard one another?

This very day LeRoy Carhart can begin to re-think his fatal attraction, the many ways he loves his dedication to affirming a woman is better off with a dead baby, that 80-100,000 babies are each better off dead. This day he can turn and begin, “giving back” as he says, by truly helping women, families and society affirm life is a gift.

Listen to the full talk at Johns Hopkins University here.

A call to Catholic Church leaders and pew sitters: Real care, real love for women who are in a crisis pregnancy would be having more knowledge than any other about the reality of abortion’s violence, about the suffering and regret that abortion has caused to women and men, families and society.

Real love would include knowledge of all opportunities for adoption from completely “closed” to so open that birth mothers select adoptive families from lovingly created family albums, write letters to their child or have grandparents attend birthdays and other significant life events.

Real love would provide information about families waiting to specifically adopt down syndrome babies or babies with a poor prenatal diagnosis. Real love would include information about perinatal hospice, affirming parents who wish hold and love their babies for the short time they may live outside the womb rather than allow anyone to skew this as a selfish decision.

Real love would include knowledge of a variety of resources for anything from spiritual and life counseling to housing and material needs help to medical care.

Real love would be finding the courage to stand as a public witness to the truth that life is a gift, always, and be willing to engage someone with different views or brave a particularly cold or hot day for a time.

And real love would be speaking boldly, with authority what the Catholic Church teaches about the Eternal consequences of mortal sin in hopes that many will repent of their sin and be set free. As a priest friend once described, “‘I’m sorry’ means, ‘If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t do it.'”