Roundup: N.D. Clinic Doctor Will Not Be Charged For Letting Her License Lapse

Robin Marty

The Red River Clinic doctor who let her license lapse will not be facing criminal charges.

The doctor at the Red River Clinic in Fargo who accidentally let her North Dakota medical license lapse at the end of June has had her license renewed and will not be facing any legal charges over the incident.

Via In-Forum:

The Cass County state’s attorney has declined to bring criminal charges against a doctor at the Red River Women’s Clinic who performed abortions with a temporarily expired state medical license.

Birch Burdick, in a memo sent Tuesday to Fargo police investigators, concluded that Dr. Lori Thorndike had not posed any risk to patients or flouted the law during the period her North Dakota license had lapsed.

The women’s clinic, in downtown Fargo, is North Dakota’s only abortion clinic and has been the subject of scrutiny by anti-abortion activists.

Under North Dakota law, abortions must be performed by a licensed physician. Violations in the abortion statute are subject to possible misdemeanor or felony criminal penalties.

Thorndike, who is based in Colorado and periodically practices at the women’s clinic in Fargo, “performed a number of abortions” there on Sept. 30, three months after her North Dakota medical license expired on June 30.

“I have no information to suggest she has violated ND” – North Dakota – “requirements other than to belatedly renew her ND medical registration, which appears to have been an administrative oversight,” Burdick wrote.

Administrative oversight is not good enough for the anti-choice activists seeking to shut down North Dakota’s only clinic to provide abortions.  A local bishop expressed his disappointment at the state over its decision, but admits that whether the doctor was properly licensed or not, it makes no difference to him:

“I am disappointed by Cass County state’s attorney Birch Burdick’s decision to not file charges stemming from illegal abortions performed at the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo,” Bishop Aquila said in a November 16 statement. “The North Dakota legislature enacted laws specifically designed to protect women seeking abortions, including those that expressly require a properly licensed physician. At the same time, there is no fulfillment of the regulations of any civil law which will transform the evil of abortion into a morally acceptable act. Abortion harms children, women, and fathers in all instances, whether ‘legal’ or not.”

And Operation Rescue is furious, declaring “monkey business” between the state and the clinic.

“There is obviously some kind of monkey business at work in North Dakota. In this case, no one is saying that Thorndike did not break the law. They simply refuse to enforce the laws that were broken,” said Sullenger.

“When authorities give abortion abuses a wink and a nod, it only serves to reinforce the dangerous notion that is prevalent among abortionists that they are above the law,” said Sullenger. “Allowing abortionists to break the law without consequences creates an atmosphere that opens the door to further abuses that eventually cost women their health and sometimes their lives. Burdick and Houdek will have a lot to answer for when – not if – their lack of good judgment comes back to haunt the women of North Dakota.”

Yes, because breaking laws and receiving no real consequences is only for anti-choice activists.

Mini Roundup: A new study claims that pregnant women who smoke will be more likely to have children who grow up to be criminals.  I guess that explains all of the baby boomers crowding the jail cells right now?

Bonus Item: Rush Limbaugh is nuts.  That is all.

November 17, 2010

November 16, 2010