CARHART REINSTATED TO UNMC STAFF

STATEMENT

 Dr. LeRoy Carhart - August 23, 2001

Today is the culmination of a two-year struggle that began virtually the day the United States Supreme Court announced it had chosen to hear oral arguments in the case Stenberg vs Carhart. These arguments eventually led to the decision rendering Nebraska's "Partial Truth Abortion Ban" unconstitutional.

That case, which ultimately ended in a victory for women's right to choose abortion and doctors' right to perform abortions and use the techniques they deemed safest for their patients, resulted in yet another violation: I was fired from my volunteer adjunct professor position with the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  As a result of intense pressure from anti-choice groups, key officials at the institution were displeased with my exercising my freedom of speech in bringing the case before the Supreme Court.

A little more than two months after the June 2000 Supreme Court win, the University succumbed to pressure from the Nebraska Republican Party, a state anti-choice organization and a few University Regents worried about their re-election, by discharging me.

In April of this year a federal district court judge ruled that the  dean of the medical center most likely formed a committee to evaluate faculty positions as a pretext to fire me, as I was the only physician to receive a termination letter. Based on the court's findings, the University decided to settle this case and reinstate me as a volunteer adjunct professor.

The Medical Center's actions deeply saddened me; as I realized despite the Supreme Court's having affirmed abortion, my free speech rights were jeopardized.

The marginalization of abortion providers is a fundamental goal of the anti choice movement, and it continues to occur nationally on a daily basis.  My termination from the university is but one example. The word abortion should be recognized for what it represents - a woman's right to choose.  Abortion is not a four-letter word, and it belongs in our mainstream vocabulary. 

Abortion is not immoral, it is a moral decision that a woman has the right to choose to protect her family and herself. Doctors  should not be ostracized for their commitment to providing this much-needed service.

Anyone who remembers the pre-Roe v. Wade era, with thousands of women dying each year due to botched abortions, knows this is true.  My first experience with abortion was in the emergency rooms and "septic AB wards" in Philadelphia, PA.  I saw the horrors that faced women when abortion was illegal; and I have seen the profound changes that safe, legal abortion have brought to women throughout the world.  Yet even today in developing countries where safe abortion is not available, over 375 women die every day.  If abortion becomes illegal, or even if it remains legal but woman cannot find doctors to perform them, we will once again see women dying from illegal and self-induced abortions in the streets of this nation.

 As a result of this settlement, I have three goals:

Ø      I would like to establish, and volunteer to be the faculty
sponsor of an Omaha chapter of Medical Students for Choice, at the University of Nebraska Medical School. This will enable future physicians to, not only to perform abortions, but encourage them to speak openly, in
accordance with their First Amendment free speech rights, in support of women's hard-won right to choose.

Ø     I would like to offer my practice as a resource, to provide
abortion training to residents in OB/GYN and Family Practice that elect to include abortion in their residency rotations.

Ø     I would like to resume my work with the Department of
Pathology, Dr. Cohen and Dr. Gendelman immediately.

Both the Supreme Court case and this wrongful termination lawsuit have made one principle resoundingly clear:  No matter where one stands on the issue of choice, it is illegal to violate an individual's constitutional rights in pursuit of that belief.

I am proud to have served in the armed forces of the freest land in the world;

I am proud to be a citizen of a country that holds my rights to speak and practice medicine so dear;

I am proud that I chose to fight these actions of the State of Nebraska, and I will continue to fight at any and every level necessary, to stop the attempts to marginalize abortion providers and deny the women of this country access to safe, legal abortions.

PRESS RELEASE

Dr. Carhart Reinstated to faculty position at University of Nebraska one year after firing based on abortion Speech

Press Conference with Attorneys and Dr. LeRoy Carhart

to Discuss the Settlement of Carhart v. Smith , et al.

Thursday, August 23, 2001, 3 pm, Central Time, 4 pm, Eastern Time

Abortion & Contraception Clinic of Nebraska, 1002 W. Mission Ave., Ste. 102, Bellevue, NE 68005