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Published Tuesday January 16, 2001 Carhart's Notoriety Aids Plans for Fund BY JUDITH NYGREN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

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From his national platform as the Nebraska doctor who beat back an anti-abortion attack, Dr. LeRoy Carhart has begun raising thousands of dollars to help fellow abortion providers open clinics, fight legal challenges and offer services to low-income women.

Dr. Leroy Carhart

Carhart, who incorporated his Abortion Access Fund in May as a nonprofit Nebraska corporation, estimates that he has raised about $150,000.

The tax-deductible contributions have been arriving at his Bellevue office even though Carhart hasn't found the time in his schedule to launch a mass-mail campaign to likely contributors. A major mailing probably will take place by the end of March, Carhart said.

The goal is to eventually raise $10million, enough to help finance 20 to 30 new abortion clinics and keep providers such as Dr. Bruce Steir - a Californian who had a patient who died after undergoing a second-trimester abortion and has since pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter - from being bankrupted by legal fees.

Money also would be set aside for women who otherwise might not be able to afford an abortion.

Carhart said such a venture wouldn't have been possible without the notoriety that has come his way since winning the first abortion case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court in nearly a decade.

"If this had been a search for glory," he said, "I would be the winner. But that didn't even enter my mind when I filed my lawsuit against the state. I thought it would all be over at the first trial level."

Carhart's constitutional challenge of a ban on a controversial abortion procedure ended up spanning three years and turned him into a hero in abortion-rights circles.

Since the Supreme Court struck down Nebraska's ban on so-called "partial-birth" abortion last year, Carhart has been traveling the country as a guest speaker and award recipient.

Carhart estimates that he has been talking to an average of 2,000 people a month, including as a Larry Lader Reproductive Choice guest lecturer through the Harvard University ethics department.

His collection of awards bears the words "courage," "guardian of women's health" and one of the "most intriguing people of 2000."

Julie Schmit-Albin of Nebraska Right to Life said that "it's only natural that the pro-abortion industry would glom onto Dr. Carhart as their poster boy. They need their heroes, and if Dr. Carhart is their hero, what can I say?"

Those opposed to abortion don't care about all the attention and notoriety that Carhart is receiving, Schmit-Albin said.

"All we care about is that he stops" performing abortions, she said.

But as long as abortion is legal in the United States, that isn't going to happen, Carhart said.

He started his fund, which will be monitored by lawyers volunteering their services, to ensure that he and other providers aren't driven out of their chosen profession.

Several abortion providers, including Carhart, have been served with eviction notices, informing them that their leased clinics have been sold and that the new owners are looking for a different type of tenant.

A pamphlet has since been developed to help providers better understand their clinic leases and perhaps ward off an eviction notice, said Carhart, who continues to fight his eviction in court.

But ultimately, he said, providers need help buying clinics so they don't have the worry of eviction hanging over their heads.

Traditional lenders often are reluctant to loan money to abortion providers, and the doctors end up with interest rates as high as 14.5 percent, he said.

The Abortion Access Fund is designed to provide either grants or lower-interest loans to help doctors become clinic owners. Abortion providers also would be able to apply for grants or loans for legal fights.

All interest paid on loans would be set aside to help low-income women pay for abortions.

While many contend that abortion is a lucrative business, Carhart said reputable providers typically don't make a lot and need a fund such as his to survive in hard times.

No other doctor has set up a fund like Carhart's, said Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation in Washington, D.C.

This type of undertaking typically falls to groups and organizations, none of which can meet all the needs of abortion providers and women wanting to terminate a pregnancy, she said.

The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, for example, represented Carhart free of charge in his battle over Nebraska's abortion ban because it involved a constitutional issue of national significance.

The same kind of resources aren't available to abortion providers when they are waging personal fights, such as Carhart's effort to stop his eviction, Saporta said.

"What (Carhart) is doing is very admirable," she said.

Carhart said that like any provider, he could apply for a grant or loan through the Abortion Access Fund to open a new clinic. But that might not be necessary.

At least two people have offered to build a clinic for him, he said.

Whatever happens, he vowed, he will remain in the Bellevue area: "If I moved - even for a good reason - it would look like the anti's won. I will stay here until I can no longer practice, and then I will find someone to take over my clinic."