Maine’s top newspapers have refused to publish a pro-life op-ed written by the long-time former Executive Director of Maine’s State Board of Nursing, Myra Broadway.
The opinion editorial, submitted to the Bangor Daily News last month, and later to the Portland Press Herald, centered on the relevance to Maine’s current late-term abortion debate of Dr. Shannon L. Carr, an OB/GYN Gov. Janet Mills and Democratic leaders tapped to serve as an expert witness in support of LD 1619.
BDN’s Opinion Editor Susan Young did not respond to an inquiry asking why she rejected the op-ed, but Broadway confirmed that Young told her it would not be published. The Portland Press Herald ignored Broadway’s June 12 submission altogether.
In the op-ed, which the Maine Wire has published in full, Broadway wrote:
Dr. Carr is relevant to the conversations about LD 1619, a bill that would allow abortion up to the point a baby is born, not only because she appears to be the medical expert Gov. Mills and fellow supporters have put forward to serve as the authority figure backing the bill but because of her professional experience as one of America’s providers of late-term abortions…
A client, Keisha Atkins, was at a later stage of pregnancy when she met Dr. Carr. Four days later, Ms. Atkins was dead – the tragic result of a botched abortion. Botched, because it ended the wrong number of lives: not one or none, but two.
Dr. Carr testified at length on May 1 in support of LD 1619, the governor’s late-term abortion bill, and was invited into the Cabinet Room to appear alongside Gov. Mills at a press event.
After Democratic leaders put her forward as a medical expert to support their bill, the Maine Wire reported exclusively about Carr’s role in the 2017 elective late-term abortion that killed the 23-year-old Atkins in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In ignoring Carr, Maine’s top newspapers find themselves in the company of Maine’s other corporate media outlets and almost every columnist in the state.
Not one other outlet in the state of Maine, apart from the talk radio stations, has reported on Carr’s past experiences providing the kind of late-term abortions she and Mills want to make legal in Maine.
At the time of Atkins’ death, Carr was working as an abortionist in both New Mexico and Texas for abortion clinics operated by Dr. Curtis Boyd; Atkins was more than six months pregnant.
Following Atkins’ fatal abortion, Carr was named in a civil suit brought by Atkins’ family, a suit Boyd and the University of New Mexico Hospital system would later settle for nearly $1.3 million — facts that were well-documented in the New Mexico press. While Carr admitted no wrongdoing, she did leave New Mexico shortly after Atkins’ death to return to Maine.
In a video recorded deposition, portions of which have been published online, Carr admitted to signing off on Atkins’ elective abortion and participating in it. She said one of the reasons she did so was because Atkins’ was a young Latina woman and a waitress.
In other words, there was no medical necessity whatsoever for Atkins’ to undergo a late-term abortion.
Atkins later died on an operating room table, but not before suffering through onset of a septic abortion for ten hours at the Southwestern Women’s Options abortion clinic, a clinic that was ill-equipped to deal with such medical emergencies. Again, all of this was documented in Carr’s own deposition, legal filings, and reports from the New Mexico news media.
As Broadway pointed out in the op-ed, the procedure that ended Atkins’ life and the life of her unborn child is precisely the same procedure that LD 1619 would legalize in Maine.
She wrote: “Ms. Adkins was injected with digoxin to “effect fetal demise” (i.e., kill the baby) and also administered appropriate drugs to induce labor. She was then sent home to await labor contractions. In late-term abortion cases, this is accepted practice: the baby’s heart is stopped and it is delivered stillborn.”
By Carr’s own admission, the danger of an abortion to the mother increases considerably later in a pregnancy. However, LD 1619 contains no requirements that clinics in Maine improve their emergency medical capabilities in order to guard against the kind of circumstances that cost Atkins’ her life.
Broadway concludes her op-ed by asking the following question concerning unwanted late-term pregnancies: “Would not the best and safer option be a natural delivery with an adoption plan for the baby?”
Rather than publish the piece, Young informed Broadway that she would be giving it to the BDN’s news department. As of Wednesday, several weeks after the op-ed was originally submitted to the paper, the news department has not written about Carr, despite multiple items covering the State House debate over LD 1619.
During the same period of time, the newspapers have published plenty of opinion content and editorial content supporting the late-term abortion bill.
On June 9, for example, the BDN ran an editorial accusing critics of the bill of being overly emotional and making false claims about the bill.
The board wrote: “This bill is not the extreme caricature that some have claimed. It will not allow abortions at any time for any reason, as some opponents claim. It will not allow abortion up until the moment of birth because a mother changed her mind, another claim we’ve heard.”
Carr, who is now providing abortion services in Maine, would disagree.
During her testimony in favor of LD 1619, Rep. Rachel Henderson (R-Rumford) asked Carr the following question:
“Are you saying that an abortion of a perfectly healthy baby at 36-weeks is acceptable under this bill?”
Carr replied:
“I didn’t say 36-weeks necessarily, but a later abortion, yeah. Depending upon, again, that consultation with a medical provider, their mental health professional, etc., I am not to judge.”
It’s also worth mentioning that Carr’s clinic was later revealed as the source for fetal tissue provided to the University of New Mexico for research, some of which was transferred to private research clinics. No item of legislation in the current session has contemplated whether Maine should adopt restrictions on how aborted baby parts must be disposed of, whether they can be used for research, or whether they can be sold to private interests. However, with the elimination of the 30-year-old 24-week viability threshold, the disposition of fetal remains will invariably present a lucrative opportunity to clinics and medical researchers.
Carr’s story should serve as a cautionary tale about how late-term abortion presents real risks to women’s health when proper safeguards are not in place. But the ideologically driven media blackout on her story, and Keisha Atkins’ life, has ensured that that conversation will not receive the attention it deserves.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="20212 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=20212">4 Comments
Thank you Steve Robinson and The Maine Wire for covering this issue….no other Maine news outlet has done the same.
Digoxin is a highly toxic medication that lacks any FDA approval for use in fetal termination. Will Maine pharmacists decline to fill these prescriptions and report the physicians to their professional boards for investigation and potential discipline? Such has been the case for a much safer drug in the past 3 years, ivermectin. What is the justification for these two scenarios be treated differently? Just asking.
Digoxin is a highly toxic medication that lacks any FDA approval for use in fetal termination. Will Maine pharmacists decline to fill these prescriptions and report the physicians to their professional boards for investigation and potential discipline? Such has been the case for a much safer drug in the past 3 years, ivermectin. What is the justification for these two scenarios be treated differently? Just asking.
David…. there is no justification. It’s all about $$$$$$$$.Money paid to left wing nut jobs, no matter their occupation, by big pharma.