At 10 am Monday, October 19, a joint press conference was held at the Capitol Rotunda featuring Eric Harrah and Peg Luksik.

Eric Harrah is the founder of the abortion mill in State College, next to Penn State.

Harrah said "The Abortion Control Act is not worth the paper it is printed on" because it is not being enforced. Harrah cited his own experience with opening the State College facility. The local hospital refused to issue the transfer agreement which is required by the Abortion Control Act. Harrah phoned the Dept. of Health, and threatened to sue. Harrah assumed they would not be able to open the clinic. Three hours later, the Health Department called back and said the requirement had been waived, that no transfer agreement would be needed.

(A transfer agreement is a consumer safety provision which allows for smoother transfer of patients with botched abortions or other medical emergencies - it covers medical history, medications and procedures, and expedites paperwork at the receiving hospital.)

Peg Luksik mentioned that the Health Department's initial story was that a "federal law" required waiver of the transfer agreement. When pressed, the Department was unable to cite such a law, and said "all the other abortion clinics opened since 1991" had already established the precedent of waiver of the transfer agreement. The Department could not cite specific clinics. Further investigation revealed that the number of abortion facilities had actually decreased since 1991, and that the State College facility was almost certainly the first opened since the Act went into effect.

Harrah then discussed severe quality control flaws in the Act. He stated that he wrote the Procedure Manuals for the clinic, even though he has no medical training and only 1.5 years of college. Nonetheless, the manuals passed muster with the Department of Health. The Health Dept. site visit lasted less than an hour. The facility and the physicians working there (one of whom Harrah said was a "sexual predator" who had been charged with sexually abusing patients) had no malpractice insurance. Harrah stated that the owner of the clinic is a doctor who has had his license to practice revoked in numerous states, and is currently appealing a criminal conviction in New York. He is not licensed in Pennsylvania. The "dummy" corporation created by the doctor to manage the abortion mill has no assets.

Harrah stressed that women damaged, maimed or sterilized by the clinic would have had no way to collect damages. One of the doctors, Harrah mentioned, was specifically forbidden by the lab to draw blood, but was allowed to do abortions.

Luksik said that this global failure to enforce the provisions of the Abortion Control Act proved Ridge's 1994 promise to uphold it was "campaign rhetoric." Harrah agreed, and added that Greg Cunningham, the Assemblyman who wrote the Act, stated recently to Harrah in Ohio that the Act was not intended to regulate the industry, but rather was merely a "teaching tool."

Luksik added that Ridge's failure to enforce the Act is typical of what she called his "rabid advocacy of abortion." When pressed by a journalist, she reminded him of the 56,000 medical assistance women mailed Planned Parenthood brochures by employees of the Department of Public Welfare, at state expense, with Ridge's approval (according to departmental memos which can be seen on her website). She also reminded the journalist of the resumption of public subsidy for abortion providers by Ridge, at $2.03 million in 1995, increasing to over $3 million this year.

Harrah said "the blood of 750 babies is on Tom Ridge's hands" and added that Christians have a "moral duty" to vote their conscience and vote for Peg Luksik for governor.