Woman sues LeRoy Carhart’s estate over botched abortion after 18 months of surgeries

(LifeSiteNews) — A Delaware woman is suing the estate of notorious late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart for a botched abortion he performed four months before his April 2023 death and which necessitated more than a year of follow-up surgeries.

Live Action reports that in January 2023, Chanetta Smith traveled to Carhart’s Maryland facility upon referral by an unspecified “national abortion services company” for an abortion at 24 weeks. According to the lawsuit she filed in April of this year, Smith underwent a dilation and evacuation (D&E), or “dismemberment,” abortion in a procedure Carhart’s staff maintain went “very well” with “no complications.”

After being discharged, however, Smith experienced severe hemorrhaging and was rushed to a hospital where she was found to have dangerously low blood pressure, lost almost two-thirds of her blood volume, and presented indications her organs were starting to shut down. It was soon discovered that Carhart had left “products of conception” – i.e., baby body parts – inside of her uterus.

Smith was transferred to the University of Maryland’s trauma center, diagnosed with hemorrhagic shock, and operated on to remove the remaining body parts, where tears were discovered in her vagina and cervix. Smith was again discharged, but five days later went to another emergency room, where it was discovered she had a perforated and ruptured uterus and a hole between her bladder and vagina, leading to a pooling pocket of infected fluid and a urine backup swelling her right kidney.

For seven months she had to live with a bladder catheter, and it was not until 18 months after her abortion that additional surgery finally repaired all the damage Carhart had caused.

For all this ordeal, Smith’s lawsuit seeks damages from Carhart’s Clinics for Abortion and Reproductive Excellence (CARE) as well as Carhart’s widow, Mary Lou Carhart, as the personal representative of his estate.

Throughout his career, Carhart left a trail of dead bodies, maimed women, disregarded abortion limits, and safety violations in his wake, ultimately being credited with killing more than 30,000 babies. In 2013, he was caught on undercover video comparing a dead baby inside a uterus to “meat in a crock pot,” joking about dismembering babies with a pickaxe or drill bit, and admitting that a baby who “came out” early “probably could” survive.

CARE’s social media history has underscored the perversity of Carhart’s trade, from sharing a photo of an office Christmas tree topped not with a star or an angel, but a pair of Sopher clamps used in dismemberment abortions, to offering women “remembrance boxes” in “loving memory” of the babies they kill, featuring small plush animals and handprints and footprints.

Despite this record, Carhart was enabled to operate with impunity by the dominant values of his chosen field. Abortion, which despite persistent media narratives is almost never sought for “medical” reasons, has long been known to carry significant risks on top of its intended lethality to preborn babies. Yet the industry overwhelmingly resists basic health and safety regulations, prioritizing maximum abortion “access” over patient welfare.

Abortion clinics across the country are regularly flagged for harming women through botched procedures, unsanitary tools and environments, and lack of regulatory protections such as requirements for staff to secure admitting privileges at nearby hospitals in the event of complications. With the rise of services dispensing abortion pills by mail in violation of federal law, chemical abortions self-administered completely without medical oversight are certain to increase those harms further still.

Even when “properly” performed, abortions still carry grave risks. According to the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), which represents 7,000 medical professionals who reject the left-wing orthodoxy of the medical establishment, “[w]omen face a 35% increased risk of preterm birth in a future pregnancy after one surgical abortion and an almost 90% increase in preterm birth risk after two abortions. The increased risk of future preterm birth for women after they have an abortion represents a clear long-term health risk. Mothers who deliver preterm babies are at a higher risk of medical complications later in life, including cardiovascular disease and stroke.”