By REY FLORES
Women who die from botched abortions will never have the ability to do anything anymore, let alone use some stupid, trendy #MeToo hashtag on social media.
Who speaks out against the abuse and death inflicted on women through abortion? Why aren’t the militant, pro-abortion feminists decrying one of the most heinous of crimes against women — botched abortions?
Elisa Martinez, a strong leading pro-life activist based in Albuquerque, N.M., speaks out — that’s who. She runs the terrific organization New Mexico Alliance for Life.
Recently Martinez and I spoke at length about Albuquerque’s notoriety as one of the nation’s hotspots for a late-term abortion.
More specifically, we talked about the 2017 death of a healthy 23-year-old Albuquerque woman who sought to abort her baby 23 weeks into her pregnancy.
The 2017 official autopsy report from the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator (OMI) determined that Keisha Atkins’ cause of death was “natural,” stemming from a “pulmonary thromboembolism due to pregnancy.” Atkins had been undergoing an elective third-trimester abortion.
Attorney Michael Seibel, who represents Atkins’ estate, had a number of related emails subpoenaed from the University of New Mexico (UNM), where the OMI is located. These emails indicate that multiple UNM doctors voiced concerns about the autopsy after they diagnosed the patient with a septic infection relating to the abortion.
The doctors treated Atkins at UNM when she was transferred from the notorious Southwestern Women’s Options clinic, owned and operated by abortionist Curtis Boyd, to UNM Hospital for emergency treatment.
The emails revealed the following, according to New Mexico Alliance for Life:
The autopsy was conducted by medical investigator Lauren E. Dvorscak, MD, who is also an assistant professor of pathology at UNM School of Medicine.
In one of the emails obtained by Seibel, UNM hospital emergency medicine physician Dr. Trenton Wray wrote, “I have to admit, I was floored by the cause of death being a massive PE (pulmonary embolism). Everything about her course was consistent with septic abortion . . . refractory septic cardiomyopathy (heart failure due to infection), death.”
UNM Hospital radiologist Dr. Gary Hatch, who performed a CT scan of Atkins’ lung and heart stated, “Second review reveals no segmental or larger emboli. There just simply isn’t PE [pulmonary embolism].”
Despite declaring the cause of death “natural” due to pregnancy, Dvorscak admits in another email that Atkins was infected from the abortion.
When questioned by UNM Hospital Doctors Wray and Hatch, Dvorscak states that she does not know whether the source of the embolism is from the septic abortion, despite her autopsy attributing the cause of death as an embolism, solely to the pregnancy, “However, there is no way for me to know if she embolized from a deep vein, completely separate from her sepsis. Unfortunately, I don’t think we will know.”
Another email from UNMH radiologist Dr. Hatch states, “The autopsy diagnosis doesn’t make sense to me. Who did the autopsy?” Following up in another email, Hatch states, “There was no massive PE present at the time of scan. Period . . . I am also confident there was no segmental or greater PE. . . .”
“This sends a chilling effect across the entire medical community since we can no longer trust the Medical Investigator’s office to operate in an unbiased and ethical manner,” said Elisa Martinez, who is also spokesperson for the Atkins estate.
“To put honest doctors’ careers at risk in order to protect Curtis Boyd’s business interests is simply unconscionable and gives the appearance of civil conspiracy. How many more botched abortions leading to death or serious injury by Curtis Boyd and Southwestern Women’s Options have been covered up by the Office of the Medical Investigator?”
“The OMI office really had to go out of their way to come up with such a biased and compromised autopsy report, one that wholly overlooks the diagnosis of every single doctor at UNMH who treated Keisha Atkins for a septic abortion infection and symptoms from the infection,” said attorney Seibel.
“My client and her family were denied their rights to justice and due process in this matter, while the Office of the Medical Investigator has attempted to shield Curtis Boyd from medical liability, as well as deterring an investigation into the source of infection.”
NM Alliance for Life has questioned the potential conflict of interest between the Office of the Medical Investigator located at the University of New Mexico and Southwestern Women’s Options.
According to the NM Alliance for Life, UNM and SWO have a longstanding collaboration involving harvesting of infant body parts for research, training of UNM residents at SWO, and SWO doctors receiving faculty appointments at UNM.
Both UNM and SWO have maintained that the clinic does not receive remuneration for the supply of infant body parts provided to the university; however, a congressional panel and an NM District Court found potential violations of state law.
I encourage you all to learn more about this developing story and to prayerfully consider supporting the terrific work of the New Mexico Alliance for Life. Visit www.nmallainceforlife.org.
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(Rey Flores writes opinion pieces and book and movie reviews for The Wanderer. Contact Rey at reyfloresusa@gmail.com.)
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