More on Arlen Specter and His Past Associates

Welcome, Cassandra readers! You bet I have more dope on Arlen Specter.

Right now, I'd like to talk about one of his past not-quite-associates, one Harvey Karman. He is one of that class of individuals that really makes my blood boil, since I was once a proudly active medical practitioner. Specifically, this man is a quack who "invented" a very dangerous abortion technique and is evidently responsible for two suspicious deaths in Los Angeles. Here's an excerpt, allegedly from Ms. magazine:

[Harvey] Karman is the developer of the menstrual extraction technique. His three-page police record includes an arrest for murder in the death of an abortion client and a prison term for illegal abortion and grand theft. One of his other abortion arrests was in connection with a West Los Angeles clinic where he was associated with one Dr. John Gwynne. [Abortionist] Gwynne has since been convicted of the murder of his nineteen-year-old girlfriend.

And by the way, Harvey Karman is not a doctor. But he pretended to be one, and that's why I call him a quack--short for quacksalver, a species of loathsome slime that victimized the American Western frontier before it finally became tame.

Now I hear you asking, "But what does this have to do with Arlen Specter?" Here's what. The relevant excerpt follows:

On Mother's Day of 1972, the bus load of Jane clients arrived at the Philadelphia mill. It was a circus. Karman had invited a public television station in New York to send a film crew. Local feminists, who did not share Jane's enthusiasm for Harvey, protested outside. Arlen Spector, who was then Attorney General of Pennsylvania, was scratching his head over what do to. Abortionists across the country were openly breaking the law in order to get arrested so that they could challenge the laws in court. Spector wasn't thrilled about the clinic, but he also didn't want to make a big show of a spectacular raid and arrest only to have the arrest thrown out through Constitutional wrangling.

My hat tip for this goes to Christina Dunigan at RealChoice, who gave me the lead in a comment. Here's her blog entry.

So there you have it! Even at best it shows that Arlen Specter was a gutless wonder as AG of Pennsylvania. But considering that fund-raising letter I mentioned earlier, I think his real problem is that he wanted abortion to be legal all along. If he "wasn't thrilled" with Harvey Karman's quack clinic, perhaps it was only because of the embarrassment it would do to "the abortion cause." In any event, he let eleven patients suffer in the name of "choice," if the RealChoice story is at all accurate. How the good people of Pennsylvania could continue to elect such a man to the United States Senate time after time is, frankly, beyond my comprehension.

To paraphrase the late Desi Arnaz, Senior: Ar-lennnnn, you've got some 'splainin' to do! You let a quack get off scot-free with offenses that would have caused any real doctor to have his license revoked, and you know it. Worse yet, by other accounts this same quack went on to kill two other women. And you dare sit in judgment over who ought to be a judge in a Federal District court, or a Justice of the Supreme Court or of a Federal Circuit Court of Appeals? No, I'm not rolling on the floor laughing. I'm trying hard not to throw up.

Thanks again, Christina, for letting me know about this demonstrably incriminating past association of Arlen Specter. And to the rest of you, keep those letters and FAXes going out to every Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee! Better yet, encourage John Kyl, the next senior Republican member, to make a run for the chairmanship himself. I've corresponded with him. He's a rock-solid conservative, and even a strong skeptic of our all-but-open-borders policy. I admit that's a digression, but trust me--he's far more conservative than Specter.

POSTSCRIPT: The Digital Brown-Pajamas has just joined the fray. Welcome! The more the merrier!