An infamous abortion business known for abortions late in pregnancy is reportedly now no longer committing third trimester abortions.
Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO) abortion facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, operated by abortionist Curtis Boyd, has updated its website to indicate that it is no longer committing third trimester abortions. Instead, the business is now referring third-trimester abortion clients to other locations around the country, according to the group Abortion on Trial (AOT).
“While there is no way to confirm exactly what has brought about this shift, after all the legal battles they’ve been facing along with negative public attention on recent reoccurring ambulance transports, we’re not surprised to see that Curtis Boyd is no longer comfortable advertising as providing post 24 week abortions,” AOT wrote on its Facebook page.
According to AOT’s Senior Counsel, Michael Seibel, the change appears to have taken place sometime between mid-December 2022 and mid-January 2023, when the SWO website removed references to abortions past 23 weeks, six days. Prior to that, the facility advertised abortions through 32 weeks on a “case by case basis”; however, Boyd openly admitted in a recent court deposition that he had no gestational limits on when he would commit an abortion.
SWO’s website comparisons
Seibel told Live Action News that shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in the Dobbs v. Jackson case, Boyd sold his Dallas abortion facility. Then, in November, AOT discovered social media messages which indicated that one of SWO’s third trimester abortionists, Carmen Landau, may have passed away while on a business trip at a National Harm Reduction Coalition in Puerto Rico last year.
While AOT was unable to verify the incident with local officials, a public statement and additional reports seemed to confirm that Landau died in October 2022.
In addition, according to an archived page from SWO’s website, late-term abortionist Shelley Sella retired sometime between July and August of 2022. That means that within a few months, Boyd lost two abortionists at SWO who committed abortions very late in pregnancy.
Did a wrongful death settlement prompt the change?
Third trimester abortions are among the most risky procedures, said Seibel, who represented the mother of Keisha Atkins, a woman who died after obtaining a late abortion at Boyd’s SWO facility. That wrongful death lawsuit resulted in a settlement of $900,000 against Boyd, Landau, and SWO, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
The settlement (along with others) may have been what triggered Boyd to pull back on committing abortions up to birth, says Seibel, who pointed to an exhibit produced in a separate lawsuit which showed that in 2013, Mt. Hawley Insurance had cancelled its liability policy for the abortion facility “due to refusal to cover” third trimester abortions. Seibel suggested that the Atkins settlement could have triggered another insurance cancellation, and if so, that may have prompted Boyd to stop committing the procedures.
SWO previously lost malpractice insurance according to court exhibit
Two separate groups confirm third trimester abortions halted
Seibel said two separate groups have confirmed that SWO has stopped committing third trimester abortions for the time being.
“Kelly Lester of Pro-love Ministries volunteered to call Boyd’s clinic and posted that they were no longer doing abortions past 23 weeks 6 days, but would be referring to Colorado, D.C. and Maryland,” Seibel told Live Action News.
Similarly, Abortion Free New Mexico also confirmed, writing online that SWO was “citing staff shortages and overwhelming clientele from out of state” and was “referring to other abortion facilities in Colorado, Maryland and Washington, D.C.”
Abortionist Warren Hern operates a late abortion facility in Colorado, while the newly-opened “all trimester abortion” facility called Partners in Abortion Care (founded by Morgan Nuzzo and Diane Horvath) is operating in Maryland. Abortionist LeRoy Carhart commits late abortions in Bethesda, Maryland, while his grandson Lee Carhart just opened a facility in Pueblo, Colorado, which currently commits abortions through 24 weeks.
The Dupont Clinic commits abortions into the third trimester in both D.C. and California, and evidence gathered from pro-lifers outside Cesar Santangelo’s Washington-Surgi Clinic abortion facility indicates that he may be committing abortions into the third trimester as well.
Years of fighting Boyd
Seibel, who has represented several clients who were either injured, deceived, or killed as a result of their abortions at SWO, said that when he learned the news about the halted third trimester abortions, it brought him satisfaction that his years of fighting Boyd might have saved some lives.
In 2015, Seibel first heard about Boyd’s late-term abortion empire when Boyd, a former Baptist minister, claimed he was sending the “spirit” of the babies he killed “to God with love and understanding.”
“I was so mad — it was so blasphemous, I knew I had to do something,” Seibel said. So, “For seven and a half years I have fought Boyd because I find it despicable that a doctor would do any abortion, but more despicable that he would perform a third trimester abortion on a viable, healthy baby.”
Seibel’s long history with Boyd began when Seibel was a volunteer attorney with New Mexico Alliance for Life (NMAFL). At that time, he helped convince the University of New Mexico to sever its relationship with SWO’s late-term abortion training program. Seibel, with NMAFL, worked with the Select Panel on Infant Lives to get two criminal referrals to the Attorney General of New Mexico for SWO’s participation in potentially illegal fetal tissue research.
“As a result, Boyd got removed as a volunteer faculty member from the University of New Mexico,” Seibel said.
Most recently, Seibel said he has worked with Mark Lee Dickson in getting a Sanctuary City for the Unborn enacted in Boyd’s hometown of Athens, Texas. The ordinance also condemned Boyd for committing 10,000 illegal abortions in Athens prior to Roe v. Wade, Seibel claimed.
Boyd’s abortion facility was also featured in an undercover investigation by Live Action:
Boyd began committing abortions in New Mexico in June of 1972, after the state decriminalized abortion.
In 2020, Boyd estimated that he personally aborted between 200,000 to 250,000 preborn babies and that his clinics had committed between 400,000 and 500,000 abortions. Today, the numbers have likely climbed even higher.
According to Joshua Prager in his book, “The Family Roe,” Boyd initially felt “uncomfortable” committing third trimester abortions, while at the same time, he said he “supported it.”
Abortions past 26 weeks were originally referred to the late George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas, Boyd told Prager. But that later changed and by 2012, Prager pointed out that Boyd had become the largest provider of third trimester abortions in the country, killing from 200-300 late-term babies a year.
Seibel said that according to patient logs AOT has reviewed, the actual number of third trimester babies Boyd’s business has killed is likely much higher.
“Even if Boyd’s third trimester abortions are only stopped for one week, that means it is likely that at least 20 healthy viable babies won’t have to go through that torture and death,” Seibel said.
Editor’s Note, 2/14/23: This post originally misidentified Pueblo, CO as Pueblo, NM. We regret the error.
