A Doctor Breaks the Law and the State Does Nothing

Operation Rescue recently caught a Maryland abortionist red-handed, but the state’s health department has done nothing about it.

Harold O. Alexander, who is currently barred from conducting surgical abortions at an unlicensed facility, continues to conducting late-term “Dilation and Evacuation”—the technical term for dismemberment—abortions. According to the pro-life activists who caught him, he was conducting these abortions late at night in an apparent attempt to avoid detection.

He has, for years, operated an unlicensed abortion business called Integrated OB/GYN Services, located in Forestville, Maryland. His facility failed a licensing inspection in 2013, when the Maryland Board of Physicians issued a cease and desist order directing him to stop performing surgical abortions and administrating certain drugs there.

Pro-life activists filmed activity at Alexander’s office on a Friday evening in February, including several parked cars in the usually empty parking lot. Suspecting that Alexander may have been conducting surgical abortions surreptitiously to avoid discovery, an Operation Rescue staffer placed a phone call to Alexander’s business number posing as a woman seeking an abortion at 17 weeks gestation.

According to Operation Rescue, Alexander answered the call and explained that at 17 weeks the abortion would cost $900. He then described how the abortion procedure would be done. A “D&E” abortion is a surgical abortion procedure, but his website falsely advertises them as “non-surgical” abortions that are available up to 26 weeks gestation.

“There is another abortionist known to have conducted illegal late-term abortions at night to avoid being found out,” Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said. “His name is Kermit Gosnell. Alexander has taken a page from Gosnell’s playbook by conducting late-term surgical abortions illegally under the cover of darkness.”

According to Operation Rescue, Alexander has a lengthy history of illegal activity related to abortions. The pro-life organization reported this latest violation to the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, requesting that it shut down Alexander’s illegal abortion operation pending the outcome of revocation proceedings.

Instead, the department merely noted the Board of Physicians was “in receipt” of the complaint. Further noting Alexander was under investigation from charges dating back to July of last year, its response letter said the newest complaint would be “kept on file” with the board.

“It is unbelievable that evidence of illegal, late-term, surgical abortions done by a repeat offender who is proven to pose a danger to the public isn’t being taken seriously by the Board,” Newman said. “Alexander is being allowed to continue to place the lives of women in danger with the blessing of the Maryland Board of Physicians. It makes me wonder what it takes to get the law enforced in Maryland. Without enforcement, laws are meaningless.”