TRENTON, N.J. — A doctor who ferried patients to Maryland for late-term abortions that he wasn't authorized to perform in New Jersey had his license suspended Wednesday by regulators who called his actions manipulative and deceptive.
Dr. Steven Brigham started late-term abortions with medication in Voorhees, N.J., and finished them in Elkton, Md., where state law is more permissive, authorities said. He has no hospital privileges in New Jersey and is not authorized to perform abortions past the 14th week of pregnancy because New Jersey does not consider him qualified to do so.
"Dr. Brigham has consistently and repetitively engaged in manipulative and deceptive behavior designed to circumvent the requirements of the board's termination of pregnancy regulation and to eviscerate the protections that those regulations seek to afford to New Jersey patients," the state Board of Medical Examiners said in its ruling after hearing nearly nine hours of testimony.
Brigham plans to appeal the board's suspension of his only remaining medical license. He said during testimony that he believed everything he did was legal.
"Why, when you had the option to perform perfectly legal abortions, you found it necessary to schlep patients to other states?" board member Paul Mendelowitz asked Brigham.
"I only did these things because I thought I had the approval of the New Jersey medical board," Brigham said.
The New Jersey attorney general's office said Brigham was "grossly negligent" in transporting the patients, who were instructed to follow him by car.
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