BELLEVUE, Neb. &mdash: At the end of a day of performing one abortion after the next after the next, LeRoy Carhart phrases the question himself.
“Do I think I’ll get shot? I hope not,” the physician says. “Is it a possibility? I think it’s a very, very good possibility.”
Meantime, the potbellied military retiree, grandfather and horse lover carries on the same steady abortion business that has defined, dominated and directed his life for the last two decades.
Now he stands at the most thinly manned front line in America’s abortion wars — almost daring the opposition to stop him from performing late-term abortions.
The anti-abortion group Operation Rescue mustered its troops for rallies outside Carhart’s clinic Friday and Saturday in Bellevue. When the pitch of protests fades, the group promises to recruit a local resistance to do everything it can to shutter his offices.
That, in turn, has brought abortion rights activists to join forces on Carhart’s behalf, mounting counterprotests and promising legal help to keep him at work.
Read the full story at KansasCity.com.