By REY FLORES
How many times have we heard the pro-abortion, third-wave feminists scream and cry about “safe and legal” abortions?
We hear that all the time, especially when their precious Roe v. Wade appears to be under threat, imagined or not.
What happened to a healthy 23-year-old woman in Albuquerque, N.M., last year should have never happened to her — or to anyone else.
Of course, all abortions are unsafe, especially to the unborn child who loses his or her life. In regard to the safety and health of the mothers seeking an abortion, that’s a whole different story, particularly during a late-term abortion procedure. The later in the pregnancy, the higher the risks to a woman seeking to abort her child.
Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO) in Albuquerque, N.M., is owned and operated by abortionist Curtis Boyd. He calls himself a doctor, but I won’t call him that.
In what may be one of the most blatant abuses by an abortion provider in recent history, Boyd and his staff explicitly instruct women who have just had an abortion at SWO to not call 911 or seek medical attention at an emergency room if they experience post-abortive complications.
To add injury to injury, and insult to injury, women experiencing post-abortive complications like excessive bleeding or a septic infection are instead told, in writing, to call the clinic’s 24-hour answering service.
I don’t know about any of you, but when there’s a medical emergency, the first thing I do is call 911 or head straight to the nearest emergency room.
Because of this type of irresponsible malpractice, there can be no such thing as a safe abortion for any woman at SWO.
The latest development in this tragic story is that a wrongful death lawsuit has been filed on behalf of the estate of 23-year-old Keisha Atkins who died during a botched late-term abortion last year.
(LifeNews.com has reported extensively on this tragedy.)
Atkins died after being transferred to the University of New Mexico Hospital (UNMH) while experiencing complications from a septic infection during an elective late-term abortion performed by Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO) in Albuquerque. Atkins was six months pregnant.
It is important to stress that Southwestern Women’s Options (SWO) is owned and operated by the above-mentioned Curtis Boyd, who is a co-founder of the National Abortion Federation, which now also represents abortionists in Australia and Canada.
The lawsuit seeks damages against both UNM and SWO for medical malpractice, wrongful death, and civil conspiracy. SWO is charged with violating the New Mexico Unfair Trade Practices Act for instructing women: “do not go to the emergency room,” but rather, contact the clinic’s answering service for a medical emergency.
Six abortionists including SWO’s doctors Carmen Landau, Shannon Carr and Curtis Boyd are named along with UNM abortion doctors Lily Bayat, Brenda Pareda, and Lisa Hofler. Bayat and Pareda are named specifically for their negligent referral of Atkins from the UNM Center for Reproductive Health abortion clinic to SWO.
Dr. Lisa Hofler, assistant clinic director of the UNM Center for Reproductive Health clinic, is also named in the lawsuit for delaying lifesaving medical treatment for Atkins in the emergency room, once transferred to UNMH from SWO.
Albuquerque attorney Michael Seibel and attorney Justin K. Hall, a former Academic All-American football player for UNM, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Atkins’ mother, Tina Atkins, and her sister, Nicole Atkins. The pathologist, Dr. Lauren Dvorscak of the UNM Office of the Medical Investigator, is also named in the lawsuit for civil conspiracy in the cover-up of Atkins’ cause of death.
As previously reported in emails obtained by Atkins’ attorneys, UNMH doctors Trenton Wray, MD, and Gary Hatch, who treated Atkins, raised serious concerns about the accuracy of the autopsy report by Dr. Lauren Dvorscak. Dvorscak’s report attributed Atkins’ death to natural causes due to pregnancy, rather than the botched abortion.
Atkins’ estate also charges that SWO did not fully disclose risks and potential complications of the late-term abortion. According to an American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology study, late-term abortions carry a 91 times greater risk of death than first trimester abortions.
“Keisha Atkins’ medical treatment was a series of negligence and malpractice which ultimately led to her untimely death — these actions were compounded by the fact that she was instructed to not seek emergency room care by Southwestern doctors,” said Atkins’ attorney Seibel.
“We also have reason to believe that these parties conspired with UNM’s Medical Investigator to conceal the cause of death from the abortion in order to protect each other’s interests and longstanding relationships.”
“What kind of clinic instructs patients not to contact the hospital for an emergency, but rather to call an answering service in the middle of a life-threatening septic abortion?” asked Elisa Martinez, spokesperson for the Atkins estate.
“This is not medicine, this is a reckless public health crisis driven by abortionist Curtis Boyd, a co-founder of the National Abortion Federation who puts his bottom line and ideology above his patients.”
This Atkins case is just one that we happen to know of. There’s no telling just how many more women have been hurt or killed by negligent and reckless practices by the abortion industry.
The main interest of all abortion providers is money. They have demonstrated that many times, in many clinics across the country.
If today’s third-wave militant feminists really cared about women’s rights and healthcare, they’d be fighting to shut down unsafe abortion clinics like this particular one.
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(Rey Flores writes opinion and book and movie reviews for The Wanderer. Contact Rey at reyfloresusa@gmail.com.)
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