New Jersey wants abortionist Steve Brigham's license

The New Jersey Attorney General office has filed a complaint against abortionist Steve Brigham and is seeking the suspension or revocation of his medical license. Brigham is licensed to perform abortions in New Jersey up to 14 weeks but a recent botched abortion incident in Maryland has alerted authorities to how he begins later second-trimester abortions in New Jersey and then caravans women to Maryland where another abortionist finishes the abortion.

Brigham was not authorized to abort fetuses older than 14 weeks in New Jersey. Maryland law does not specifically restrict second-trimester abortions.

New Jersey authorities accuse Brigham of initiating abortions for three patients in Voorhees, N.J., then leading them in a caravan to Elkton, where the procedures were concluded. Documents show another physician botched the abortion of one of those patients, forcing her to undergo emergency surgery.

In other Brigham-related news, a panel for Maryland's state medical board has upheld the license suspensions of two abortionist (Nicola Riley and George Shepard Jr.) who worked at Brigham's American Women's Services abortion clinics in Maryland.

C. Irving Pinder Jr., the executive director of the physicians board, said that even though Brigham was unlicensed in Maryland, he could still be fined $50,000 for each incident of malpractice, and law enforcement agencies were looking into the possibility of charging him with felonies. The other two doctors could also be charged, and the physicians' board retains the option of reprimanding them, revoking their licenses, placing them on probation or dismissing their cases.

The second page of the article also notes that the board members signed the suspension order for another abortionist in Maryland. Romeo Ferrer had his license suspended after a woman died of an overdose of anaesthesia in 2006.

The woman in that case, the mother of a 3-year-old boy, was 16 weeks pregnant and healthy at the time of the abortion, according to the document. An autopsy indicated that she died of "Meperidine intoxication," a reference to a narcotic analgesic.

Board investigators concluded that a second dose, given to the patient just five minutes after the first, "was too large and administered too quickly" and that Ferrer and his team failed to properly monitor her pulse and blood pressure. When the woman's fingernails turned blue, a sign that she was deprived of oxygen, Ferrer "failed to provide adequate resuscitative efforts," the document says