One of the doctors involved in the abortion that killed Keisha Atkins in 2017 has testified in support of an attempt to expand the gestational age abortion limit in Maine, arguing that late-term abortion procedures are life-saving.
Gov. Janet Mills’ (D) proposed abortion law (LD 1619) would remove the viability restriction that currently exists on abortion in Maine and would allow abortion up to birth. It has encountered considerable opposition, including from pro-lifers who showed up to the state capitol earlier this month to speak out against it.
Abortionist Shannon Carr, however, testified before the State House Judiciary Committee on May 2 in support of the expansion, and according to The Maine Wire, she told the committee that “later abortions” are “life-saving health care.” Carr’s remarks are especially disturbing as she was a part of the $1.26 million settlement over Atkins’ death. Atkins had sought an abortion at 24 weeks from Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Carr approved the abortion after a 20-minute consultation.
Carr is licensed to practice medicine in the state of Maine, as well as in Vermont, Illinois, Texas, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. However, she said in 2019 that she worked for Maine General Hospital in an “office only” capacity. She has also been involved in Maine politics, according to The Maine Wire, and was one of the first witnesses called to testify in favor of LD 1619.
When asked by Rep. Rachael Henderson, “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 that provider, um, their mental health professional, yeah.
I am not to judge.
Her reported testimony echoed other pro-abortion advocates who have embraced the ironic “life-saving” label for abortions – effectively disregarding the brutality inflicted on innocent preborn children and ignoring the fact that premature children as young as 21 weeks have survived outside the womb, and therefore intentionally killing a child late in pregnancy to save a mother’s life is not necessary.
The 23-year-old Atkins died — with her child still in her womb — a few days after the clinic killed her baby with an injection. Carr’s deposition indicated there was little basis for her signing a medical document recommending the abortion. Live Action News previously reported:
Carr claimed in a medical document that Atkins needed the abortion to prevent “substantial and irreversible harm to her physical health, her mental health, her family health, her safety and well being.” But Carr spoke to Atkins for only 20 minutes before making this assessment.
When the attorneys present at the deposition questioned Carr about the diagnosis, the abortionist admitted the pregnancy posed no “irreversible physical harm” to Atkins’s health. Instead, Carr made assertions about the state of Atkins’s mental health to try and provide a medical justification for a late-term abortion. Carr’s answers, however, were nothing more than mere guesses about Atkins’s frame of mind.
“That would just be speculation of parenting at a young age as a single mom,” Carr answered when asked how the pregnancy would cause irreversible harm to Atkins’s mental health. “Financially not stable; depression; anxiety. That would be speculation as to any forward effects on her mental health.”
Neither the clinic where Carr worked nor the University of New Mexico, which referred Atkins to the clinic, admitted wrongdoing as part of the settlement, Maine Wire reported.
