NEW YORK, NY – The New York Post’s opening lead in a December headline read: “Police yesterday raided a filthy Lower East Side medical office and arrested a doctor they say ripped the arm off a fetus he was trying to abort – but who was born alive the next day.”

Dr. Abu Hayat, 61, who is accused of ripping the arm off a third trimester baby during an illegal abortion, also frightened his client into paying $1,500 – Hayat reportedly charged his victim, Rosa Rodriguez, $1,000 in cash, plus her passport, green card and jewelry as collateral for the other $500.

The good news is that the baby, Ana Rosa Rodriguez, shown in bandages on the front-page of Newsday, has been released from a New York hospital, and is doing fine, although she is missing an arm.

There are about 100 abortion clinics in New York City. About a dozen are licensed by the state. The others are run by doctors who set up shop, and do the job with varying degrees of skill, counting the cash above their hygiene, staff credentials, records, and procedures. Even the licensed clinics are unsafe. The Eastern Women’s Center on East 30th Street, for example, has been the site of the deaths of two females; between 1986 and 1988, it was fined $92,000 for all kinds of violations.

Few abortion clinics are ever closed by New York state. Even Dr. Abu Hayat, was not suspended by the state Health Department until the exposé coming from New York’s sensational news tabloids promoted an outcry against Hayat. Legal abortion has moved from the back alley to the front parlor. The process is still unsafe, only the profits are a lot bigger.