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Riverside -- After performing a botched abortion that killed a young woman, being tried for murder, convicted of involuntary manslaughter and eventually sentenced to only six months in county jail, abortionist Bruce Steir is being released more than two months early for "good behavior." Steir, 68, perforated the uterus of 27-year-old Sharon Hamptlon in December 1996 while performing an abortion of her 20-week-old unborn child in a Riverside County, California abortion facility. Hamptlon, who lived in neighboring San Bernardino County, bled to death in front of her 3-year-old son while being driven home by her mother after the abortion. Steir is scheduled to be released today and expresses no remorse for his actions. In a jailhouse interview Thursday, Steir insisted he has done nothing criminal and is akin to a political prisoner. "My incarceration proved nothing," Steir said. Steir maintained Thursday that he was guilty only of failing "to make the diagnosis of her condition." "I'm absolutely not sorry." he said. "I'm sorry I ended up in jail. I'm sorry I had to surrender my license, and I'm sorry a woman died. I would like not to have done that abortion that day." He was charged with second-degree murder, but on the eve of a trial, he pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, a lesser charge. Family members of the victim, Sharon Hamptlon, say they are still struggling to piece their lives back together. "We'll dealing with it as it comes," said Doris Hamptlon, the victim's mother. "It's still there, but we have a little closure." Having been on probation with the California medical board since 1988, Steir surrendered his license to practice medicine four months after Hamptlon's death. Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Kennis Clark argued the abortion practitioner knew he made a lethal mistake during the abortion but failed to call emergency personnel because his medical license was already on probation for previous allegations of negligence. An attending nurse testified that during the abortion, Steir looked shocked and said, "I think I pulled bowel," indicating he had perforated Hamptlon's uterus and partially extracted a segment of intestine. Instead of sending Hamptlon to a hospital--mandatory in such cases--Steir had the woman bundled into a car and sent home. Steir was accused of "gross negligence" and a lack of "due caution" for his actions. He was convicted of involuntary manslaughter on May 26 and was immediately taken into custody. After serving 114 days of his 185-day sentence, Steir will be released tomorrow due to good behavior, according to the Riverside County jail. His early release is the result of California's "good time/work time" statute, which prescribes a formula for calculating revised release dates due to good behavior--a standard procedure applied to virtually all cases. Pro-life groups are disturbed by Steir's early release. Advocates of abortion acknowledge there are complications associated with abortion but wrongly claim occurrences are rare. Eileen Schnitger is the director of education at the Feminist Women's Health Center abortion facility, where Steir worked for 12 years. She claimed the abortionist's complication rate was extremely low. "Perforation is a known complication for abortion. It is a risk in any abortion," she said before Steir's sentencing in May. "It's a blind procedure. ... You're putting instruments inside where you can't see." Asked for comment, county attorney Clark sighed and mused, "How many times do we have to chew this cud? ... I'm satisfied (Steir) was allowed to exercise the full panoply of his rights." She notes that during the appeals court review, "I even took the stand so they could examine my motives (regarding selective prosecution). It was litigated ad nauseum." Clark said Steir's remark that he had "pulled bowel" was the key to the prosecution. "If that statement had never been made, we never would have prosecuted that case," she said. "When you make a statement that you've done something bad and don't do anything to fix it, that's when you're in trouble. ... Because (Steir) had so many prior bad acts and lies in his background ... we know that he knew." Now, looking toward returning to his San Francisco home, the 69-year-old balding, white-haired man with a diminutive build said he is financially drained from having spent $300,000 on legal fees. Five years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service await him. He hopes, with his medical experience, to pay his service through volunteering with the state Department of Health Services, possibly as a counselor on birth-control methods. He has no plans to regain his medical license. Source: The Pro-Life Infonet
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