Abortion doctor draws protests

GERMANTOWN, Md. – Maryland emerged as the new front for an old battle on Monday, as a prominent late-term abortion doctor began offering the controversial procedure at a clinic here, in the face of protests from anti-abortion activists.

Last week’s announcement that Nebraska-based Dr. LeRoy H. Carhart, an outspoken late-term abortion doctor, would begin providing the procedure at Germantown Reproductive Health Services on a part-time basis sparked a flurry of activity among national and local anti-abortion activists, who gathered near the clinic’s office park Monday morning to stage a demonstration and prayer vigil.

“We will work to ensure that Maryland does not become the late-term abortion capital of America,” said the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, executive director of the Christian Defense Coalition, which organized the protest with Operation Rescue, a Kansas-based anti-abortion group.

Mahoney and other speakers called for state legislative action to tighten rules on abortions and ban outright late-term abortions. Such procedures, they said, often take place after “viability,” or when a fetus may survive outside the womb, a murky but central concept in the fight over abortion regulations.

Monday’s protest also featured local religious leaders and speakers from conservative groups such as Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council, and organizers have launched a website devoted to ousting Carhart from the state.

Maryland is considered by both sides in the debate to be one of the most liberal states when it comes to regulating the procedure.