News recently broke of a traveling abortionist who was arrested during a South Carolina drug bust. He and a partner, allegedly his wife, had been performing abortions in a van that they drove from place to place. This “mobile abortion clinic” provided an unsanitary, filthy environment for surgery on women’s bodies. In the van, police found abortion tools covered in “blood and human tissue.”
The abortionist has now been named as James Pendergraft, who has a long history of malpractice and has had his license suspended a number of times in different states. Pendergraft, who currently runs a chain of late term abortion clinics in Florida, is said to be “easily the worst abortionist practicing right now in the U.S” by Operation Rescue, an organization that keeps a record of abortion complications, lawsuits, and legal actions against abortion doctors.
Pendergraft once said that “God has blessed me with the ability to do what I do.” He says he performs late-term abortions because “If I weren’t here, these women wouldn’t have this choice. A lot of doctors and hospitals won’t deal with abortions.”
Pendergraft is also very proud of doing late-term abortions. He has said:
If you want to do a business right, you’ve got to show people you’re proud… If I were hiding or hanging my head, women wouldn’t feel proud coming to me, and they should – this is a moral choice for a woman who does not want to be a mother… We’re talking about a woman’s constitutional right. Anyone who doesn’t like the Constitution should get the hell out of the country…
Kelly Clinger is one woman who is not “proud” of having abortions done by Pendergraft. Clinger is a devout Christian who has shared her abortion testimony with Silent No More and on her personal blog.
In November of 2010, Clinger posted on her blog:
This week has been a complete hell.
Someone asked if I had heard about the doctor in Orlando who has been in a lot of trouble, and when I searched for news about it, I realized it was James Pendergraft, the doctor who did my abortions. He has now had his medical license suspended for the FOURTH time, this time for performing late term abortions past the time when they are legal.
When I saw a picture of the clinic, I crumbled. When I saw a picture of the doctor, I began weeping and I couldn’t stop.
Every sight, every sound, every feeling came back. I can still remember the poster on the ceiling. It was the last thing I saw before I fell asleep from the anesthesia, and the first thing I saw when I woke up.
The article was full of stories about women like me… ones who have suffered for months, even years, because of incomplete abortions.
Clinger then describes a story from the article she was referring to:
There was a woman who was awake and saw her baby being pulled from her as his body fell apart in the doctor’s hands. They had her frantic 911 call as she decided she wanted the baby to live after seeing that it actually IS a baby, but no one at the clinic would help. By the time the ambulance arrived, the baby was dead.
If this story is true, the baby Clinger mentioned was not the only child to be born alive at one of Pendergraft’s clinics. In 2011 Pendergraft was successfully sued by the family of a little girl that he had failed to kill in an abortion. The child, 10 years old at the time of the lawsuit, had severe medical problems due to the attempted abortion. Pendergraft had to pay almost $37 million.
Clinger goes on:
It’s an uncomfortable subject… because if I call it a baby, if I admit that it was a boy or a girl who had 10 fingers and 10 toes and a life that was already mapped out by God, then I am calling myself a killer. If I talk about it, blog about it, pray about it, then that makes it real.
But just when I think I’ve pushed the memories far enough behind that they won’t catch up with me, there they are again.
The self-hatred is paralyzing. It lurks closely and tells me that I don’t deserve happiness. The guilt is suffocating. It has affected every relationship I have. I can’t trust or attempt intimacy.
I would take a bullet for my out-of-the-womb children. Why didn’t I protect the ones inside?
I have given up hope that the past could have been different. I cannot change what I did. Every bible study, counseling session, and prayer seems to just be a band-aid over a wound that will NEVER heal.
So, I will be a voice for my children who only know heaven. I will be a voice for the millions of women who live in regret, guilt, self-hatred and fear of being “found out”. I will be painfully honest about every feeling I have, and I will stand up for life even when it’s unpopular and politically incorrect. So, please spare me your pro-life/pro-choice arguments. I know what I saw. I know how I feel. I will NEVER be the same. I will NEVER get over it.
And if I don’t take this pain and make it my purpose, I think it might kill me.
Clinger’s tragic testimony shows how much a woman can suffer after abortion. I hope that in the past five years Clinger has found more peace. Pendergraft victimized babies, many old enough to survive outside the womb. He has also victimized women.
