by Cheryl Sullenger | Richmond, VA | LifeNews.com | 6/12/14 4:14 PM
As Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe engages in an effort to scrap abortion clinic safety standards, two abortion facilities owned by the notorious New Jersey abortionist Steven Chase Brigham are seeking variances that would exempt them from complying with much of the law.
Virginia Women’s Wellness in Virginia Beach and Virginia Health Group, also known as American Women’s Center, in Fairfax, Virginia, admit that they are unable to comply with facility standards even though they were allowed two years to come into compliance with a 2012 emergency law that became permanent in 2013. Both have made applications to the Virginia Board of Health for variances that would exclude them from either having to make facility changes or move.
Brigham has had licenses revoked in six states and currently awaits word from the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners whether his last license in that state will also be revoked.
If Brigham’s facilities cannot comply by late 2014, they would be forced to close. It is believed that eleven other abortion facilities also cannot comply with the facility requirements by the time the grace period expires.
Since his election last year, Gov. McAuliffe has appointed five new members of the Health Board in an effort to pack the Board with abortion supporters that would ensure that the abortion facility safety regulations are repealed.
“Issuing a variance to abortion clinics owned by one of the most dangerous abortionists in the nation is a very bad idea, and repealing the safety standards is an even worse one,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “Brigham has a long history of flouting the law and endangering women with his seedy and deceptive business practices. If left to their own devices and without any accountability for maintaining appropriate standards, abortion facilities can only be counted on to sink to the lowest of patient care standards that places the lives and health of women at risk.”
In 2010, Brigham and his associate, abortionist Nicola Riley of Utah, came to the attention of Cecil County prosecutors in Maryland after the two seriously botched a late-term abortion on a woman who required emergency surgery to save her life. Hospital staff alerted police after the pair exhibited suspicious behavior when they hastily dropped their injured patient off at the emergency room.
Brigham and Riley were arrested and jailed on murder charges after an investigation showed that at least 35 late-term, viable babies were aborted illegally by him in Maryland, where he has never held a medical license. Because practicing medicine without a license is a crime, a Maryland law kicked in that allows for murder charges in the event a viable baby is killed during the commission of a crime.
While the criminal charges were later dropped, Riley’s Maryland medical license was revoked and revocation proceedings were initiated against Brigham in his home state of New Jersey.
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