Complaint filed on Carhart clinic

Dr. LeRoy Carhart this week laid off nearly half the staff at his Bellevue abortion clinic, which is the subject of a complaint filed with the state about possibly unsafe conditions.

This week, Carhart said he didn't know about the complaint, filed by several anti-abortion groups. He said he could not discuss the reason he laid off staff members.

Carhart wrote in a letter to his former employees that the layoffs were the result of “the recent decrease in patient numbers and income.” He told them they may be eligible to be rehired if a position becomes available.

One of the former employees provided a copy of the letter to The World-Herald and said that four of 10 staff members were laid off.

Local anti-abortion groups Rescue the Heartland and Nebraskans United for Life collaborated with Operation Rescue of Wichita, Kan., and the Christian Defense Coalition in Washington, D.C., on a complaint about Carhart and his clinic that was filed earlier this summer with Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning.

In the complaint, the groups claim that the clinic is “in an appalling state of neglect and disrepair,” and that Carhart is endangering lives with unsafe medical practices. They requested “the most comprehensive” investigation of Carhart and his clinic.

On Thursday, Leah Bucco-White, a spokeswoman for Bruning, said the complaint had been forwarded to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, which would be the appropriate regulatory agency.

In a letter to Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue, Chief Deputy Attorney General David Cookson wrote, “While we have referred your matter to them, we will continue to monitor the progress of their investigation.”

Marla Augustine, a spokeswoman of the state agency, would not deny or confirm that an investigation was under way.

Carhart's clinic recently gained national attention for becoming one of the few places in the nation to provide late-term abortions. Carhart said in June that he would provide the controversial procedure in the wake of the slaying of Dr. George Tiller, a friend and colleague.

Carhart specified that he would do third-trimester abortions at the Bellevue clinic only in cases where the fetus, because of a medical problem, could not survive outside the mother's body.

Anti-abortion groups have said they want to prevent Carhart from opening a late-term abortion clinic elsewhere in the Midwest to replace Tiller's former clinic in Wichita. Tiller was shot and killed May 31 in the Lutheran church he attended in Wichita.

Operation Rescue, Rescue the Heartland and Nebraskans United for Life are planning a demonstration on Aug. 29 outside the Bellevue clinic.

Several national and local abortion rights organizations, including the National Organization for Women and the Abortion Access Fund of Bellevue, plan a counter-protest that day.

Carhart on Thursday said he wasn't surprised that anti-abortion groups are making allegations against him. “This is nothing new,” he said. “They are always making stuff up, and they aren't very credible.”

Contact the writer:

444-1336, leia.mendoza@owh.com

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