Doctor in Abortion Case Fights Eviction

The doctor at the center of a U.S. Supreme Court case over what abortion foes call “partial-birth” abortions is trying to head off eviction from his clinic.

In May, a partnership of three people opposed to abortion, including state Sen. Paul Hartnett of Bellevue, bought the building used by Dr. LeRoy Carhart. They want to evict Carhart, who is one of only three doctors in Nebraska known to perform abortions.

Carhart has gone to court, arguing that his lease allows him first right to buy the building.

The doctor was thrust into the national spotlight when he challenged Nebraska’s law banning “partial-birth” abortions. The Supreme Court struck down the ban in June, ruling that the law created an undue burden on a woman’s right to end a pregnancy.

A month before the ruling, an anti-abortion group sent letters to 13 area mayors, asking them to take a stand against Carhart moving to their communities.

Last month, the University of Nebraska Medical Center said it was dropping Carhart as a volunteer faculty member. The medical center gave no reason.

The Hartnett partnership’s ownership of the building has also led to Carhart’s daughter being evicted from her apartment, located in a house on the clinic’s property.

All three tenants of the house next to the clinic were ordered to move out after building inspectors placed an “uninhabitable” placard at the house on Oct. 24. Chief building inspector Steve Carmichael said it would remain there until code violations, including substandard electrical work deemed an electrocution hazard, were corrected.

Contractors found the violations after the partnership brought them in to respond to a tenant complaint that the heat didn’t work, said Emmett Childers, attorney for the partnership. He said the contractors notified the city of the problems.

Carhart said Tuesday that his daughter’s eviction was just the latest in what he calls a series of suspicious events.

“The whole thing is a political ploy,” he said.

Carhart performs more than 1,200 abortions a year, of which he says about 20 employ the “partial-birth” procedure, which involves cutting the skull of a fetus and draining its contents before extracting the body.