THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 17, 1996 TAG: 9608170228
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MEREDITH COHN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 85 lines
A New Jersey doctor who unsuccessfully sought to open an abortion clinic near the Chesapeake-Virginia Beach border has no license to practice medicine in Virginia and has had his licenses revoked in at least two other states, according to state officials and the doctor's lawyer.
Dr. Steven Brigham and a partner sought to obtain a lease at the Atrium Building, a professional and shopping center in the College Park area of Virginia Beach.
Bill Berger, a spokesman for the Larrymore Organization, which manages the building, said he denied the application to open ``A Woman's Right'' clinic because Brigham had failed to tell him the office would offer abortions.
``We felt we hadn't been told the whole truth by them,'' Berger said. Also, he said, abortion clinics draw too much attention in general, and likely would have disrupted the building's other 15 tenants.
An advertisement for the clinic is already in the new Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages, naming it as the site of a clinic that performs ``abortion via medication.'' A woman answering the phone at an 800 number provided in the ad denied Brigham was associated with the clinic. Several messages left at the number were not returned.
The advertisement prompted local abortion opponents to plan a boycott of the Atrium Building and a picket for Thursday night. Plans were changed when the protest organizer, David Crane of Life Ministries Inc., discovered the clinic was not moving in.
Crane held a meeting at the site anyway to ``make sure we're ready if the clinic moves to, or tries to move to, another location.''
Brigham cannot practice medicine in New York or Florida, state officials there said, and he agreed to deactivate his Pennsylvania license, according to that state.
While charges against him were pending in Georgia, he let his license lapse, Georgia records show, and he is the subject of an investigation in California, according to officials there.
Nathan Dembin, Brigham's attorney in Manhattan, said most of the legal troubles are the result of one abortion the doctor performed on a 20-year-old New Jersey woman who was 26 weeks pregnant.
New Jersey officials said that a complaint was filed by the attorney general against Brigham, alleging that he had sliced the woman's cervix, uterus and uterine artery, causing her to lose eight pints of blood.
The complaint, officials said, also contends Brigham waited three hours before taking her to a hospital from his Spring Valley, N.Y., office. An emergency hysterectomy was performed later at the hospital, state officials said.
Rita Malley, a spokes with the attorney general's office in New Jersey, said charges of three other ``botched abortions'' were included in the complaint.
The state Board of Medical Examiners decided Wednesday - about two years after the charges were brought - to reinstate Brigham's license. However, Malley said, the board did require that Brigham stop using the words ``safe'' and ``painless'' in his advertisements.
Dembin, Brigham's attorney, confirmed civil cases are pending against the doctor, but he attributed much of Brigham's troubles to ``some people's attitudes toward abortion.''
Dembin said, ``I think his malpractice record is pretty good.''
Brigham's lawyer did not know if the doctor was planning to try to find another location in Hampton Roads, which has three abortion clinics - two in Norfolk and one on the Peninsula.
Suzette Caton, director of communications of the Hillcrest Clinic in Norfolk, said she was not contacted by Brigham and did not know the clinic was planned until she saw the advertisement in the telephone book. But Ron Fitzsimmons, a spokesman for the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, said he spoke with Brigham about the clinic and the doctor requested help finding another physician to perform abortions in a Virginia clinic.
Fitzsimmons said his association's records show Brigham is part-owner in at least five clinics in the Northeast.
Fitzsimmons said Brigham often puts ads in phone books with an 800 number that is answered at a New Jersey office, usually before a contract for a site for the clinic has been signed, perhaps to test the market before opening a clinic.
Fitzsimmons cited an advertisement from a Pennsylvania phone book that listed the same 800 number used in the South Hampton Roads directory. In that case, however, the clinic was called ``Allentown Medical Services,'' but no address was given.
Fitzsimmons said Brigham told him he had stopped performing abortions two years ago.
KEYWORDS: ABORTION CLINIC VIRGINIA BEACH DR. STEVEN BRIGHAM by CNB