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Abortionist Pleads Guilty

First Such Conviction Ever in State

'I plead guilty, Your Honor," were the words spoken by abortionist Bruce Steir on April 5-- the first day of what would have been his trial for second-degree murder in the homicide of young, black mother Sharon Hamptlon. Newspapers throughout California carried the event as a major news story.

Steir, a man who took pride in commiting more than 40,000 prenatal murders, pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and faces up to a year in jail and five years probation. (In 1998 Steir surrendered his medical license under pressure from the California Medical Board.)

Riverside County deputy district attorney Kennis Clark, who charged Steir with murder and had him arrested at his San Francisco home in 1997, won every pre-trial motion in a decision handed down by the judge on April 3.

No such prosecution against an abortionist had ever succeeded in California. In 1977 Dr. William Waddill was charged with first-degree murder for strangling a seventh-month-old baby girl in a hospital nursery when she was born alive after a saline abortion, and in 1983 Dr. Frank Robinson of Bellflower was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of 17-year-old Jennifer Suddeth. Both Waddill and Robinson got off, and Waddill continues killing babies for Dr. Allred's Family Planning Associates.

San Francisco attorney Doron Weinberg, who defended Steir, was unable to block disclosure of Steir's history of negligence and incompetence against women; some thought Weinberg did not want to lose at trial and thus urged the guilty plea. Steir and his backers implied that they may have run out of funds to defend the case. (In 1999, Mark Merin, attorney for the Feminist Women's Health Center in Sacramento, where Steir served as chief abortionist, defended Steir in the civil suit brought by Hamptlon's three-year-old son. Merin ended up suing Steir's malpractice insurer and got off the case.)

The strength of the case lay in the meticulous prosecution by deputy district attorney Clark. In her delaration in support of Steir's arrest, Clark wrote, "During the operation witness Nancy Myles observed a surprised look on Steir's face, followed by a statement: 'I think I have pulled bowel.'"

Witnesses, including Dr. Durante (owner of the Riverside clinic), were prepared to incriminate Steir (and infuriate Steir's Feminist Women's Health supporters) by testifying that after Steir knew he had sliced through Sharon Hamptlon's uterus, he abandoned her to untrained staff and hurried to catch a flight back to San Francisco.

Hamptlon was showing symptoms of shock as she was pushed by wheelchair to her mother's car. She hemorrhaged to death in the car's back seat, holding her three-year-old son, as her mother drove home to Barstow.

Vickie Morgan, who worked at Durante's abortion mill, was to testify (based on previous statements) that "When I told Dr. Durante how poorly run the facility was and the fact that there were no real nurses on staff, he told me it would take a couple of years for them (the authorities) to catch up to him."

During the preliminary trial hearings, the Feminist Women's Health Centers, whose logo includes a clenched fist holding a speculum, attempted to rally support for Steir. About five women wearing "Steir Our Hero" badges appeared in court, though one was thrown out of the courtroom by the judge, also a woman.

"I'm glad it's coming to an end, but I don't think a year is enough time for Sharon's death," said Doris Hamptlon, mother of Sharon. Doris and her husband are raising Sharon's son, now seven.

On November 30, 1998, the San Diego Union carried these words: "The shadow of Dr. Bruce Steir hangs over the Medical Board of California like a cloud -- a constant reminder of how an incompetent and dangerous physician slipped through the cracks.... Beginning in 1985, when he was thrown off staff at the Naval Hospital on Camp Pendleton, Steir repeatedly was disciplined for harming California women." (The medical board took action against Steir five times in twelve years.)

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