Woman May Have Died From Botched Abortion at Massachusetts Facility

Hyannis, MA (LifeNews.com) -- Two weeks ago, a Massachusetts woman may have died from an abortion at an abortion business in this southeastern city. The unnamed woman apparently died after suffering hemorrhaging caused by an abortion obtained at Women Health Center in the Cape Cod town of Hyannis.

It appears that abortion practitioner Rapin Osathanondh, did the abortion that may have caused her death. He made headlines in 2001 when he threatened to kill staff members because of misplaced paperwork.

Massachusetts Citizens for Life first informed LifeNews.com of the possible abortion death and the pro-life group Operation Rescue has looking into it as well.

LifeNews.com contacted the Women Health Center and did not receive a response to a request for comment on the story.

Operation Rescue contacted the abortion business as well and a receptionist was upset when asked about the incident and responded "I can't help you."

The pro-life group says it has learned the name of the victim and that she is a Christian who attended a Calvary Chapel church in a nearby town. She has a space on the social networking site MySpace and is a cosmetologist who was born in Honduras and was adopted by a family in the U.S.

The organization says a complaint has been filed against Osathanondh with the Massachusetts Board of Registration In Medicine regarding the abortion death.

"Our nation is facing a crisis of dangerous abortionists operating in unsafe abortion mills, killing innocent babies -- sometimes illegally as we have seen in some states -- and injuring and killing unsuspecting women," spokeswoman Cheryl Sullenger told LifeNews.com.

"More must be done to stop these predatory abortion businesses from inflicting additional human tragedy on society," she said.

Sullenger says the abortion death brings up a problem within the Christian community.

"There simply is not adequate teaching from the pulpits about abortion, and therefore Christians are aborting their babies at a shocking rate," she explained.

"According to some statistics, 68% of women obtaining abortions attend some denomination of Christian church. This shows a shameful failure on the part of American pastors to properly teach their congregations what the Bible says about human sexuality and the sanctity of life," she concluded.

Hyannis, MA – Eileen Smith has come forward in order to keep her daughter’s abortion death from being “swept under the rug.” Her 22-year old daughter, Laura Hope Smith, died on September 13, 2007, during an abortion done by Rapin Osathanondh at Women Health Clinic in Hyannis, Massachusetts.

http://www.operationrescue.org/

Early reports indicated that Laura died of hemorrhage, but Smith says that her daughter died on the abortion table. “There was no bleeding. She stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest,” said Smith.

Ten days after Laura’s death, Smith met privately for one hour at a public place with Osathanondh. He would only meet with Smith alone and refused to allow even allow her husband to accompany her. Osathanondh admitted that Laura died during the abortion but refused to admit he did anything wrong.

Laura was born into abject poverty in Hondurus on May 25, 1985, and was abandoned at an orphanage. An American couple that adopted Laura abused her terribly and gave her up. Laura was then adopted by Tom and Eileen Smith, a Christian family that lovingly raised Laura in the Cape Cod community of Sandwich.

Death Threats (5 incidents)

On December 27, 2001, abortionist Rapin Osathanondh, head of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital abortion mill, threatened to kill five of his nurses. During a staff meeting, he said “I’m going to execute people. I’m going to kill you. I’m going to execute you, Texas-style.” The incident is alleged to have occurred just a day after Michael McDermott allegedly gunned down seven co-workers at a Wakefield office. The timing of the incident only heightened the nurses’ fear, sources said.

A police report says Osathanondh was suspended, but a hospital spokesperson said the he has voluntarily stepped down pending resolution of the matter. According to the police report, the nurses said Osathanondh was upset about some forms that had “disappeared” from the nurses station. Sources said the incident occurred just days before a planned inspection by the agency that accredits hospitals.

The complaint said “All of us . . felt threatened and afraid and voiced our concerns to each other. Everyone felt something should be done, but we were afraid of retribution and making [the doctor] more angry and provoking him into doing something — like shooting us.” The police report identified the nurses as Kathie McCarthy, Martha Hester, Silleta Davis, Lenor Rodriguez and Samantha Legara.

In early 2001, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital abortion mill’s late-term abortion program shut down. Predictably, people who never met an abortion they didn’t like immediately began crying “victim.”

Melissa Kogut, executive director for the Massachusetts chapter of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARRAL, now NARAL Pro-Choice America), defended Osathanondh, saying that “He clearly cares about the right to choose. I was sorry to read that he’s not going to be practicing, because we do have a provider shortage in Massachusetts.”

The Boston Globe called this late-term abortion program “the biggest of its kind in the region,” and said that its closing caused a “crisis” for women reminiscent of the desperate search for abortion providers 30 years ago.”

What is the “crisis?”

The Globe said that the late-term abortion programs at other Boston hospitals are literally “swamped,” and that “Those too poor to travel are faced with choices thought long past: having the baby despite tests showing they or their fetus are at risk, or getting an abortion outside the hospital setting recommended for the high-risk operation.”

We have to ask ourselves a pertinent question here. The Boston Globe and other big-city newspapers have repeatedly quoted the pro-abortion line that late-term abortions are “tragic but rare.” If they are so “rare,” why are several late-term abortion programs in a small area of Massachusetts “swamped?”

The Globe said that about 2,000 women seek abortions after 14 weeks gestation each year in Massachusetts, almost all of them for fatal fetal birth defects.

Pam Nourse, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, demonstrated the pro-abortion fixation on abortion when she heartlessly said “Is there a problem? Absolutely yes. We know about at least one person who fell through the cracks. ... She had to go ahead with her pregnancy.”

Dr. Benjamin Sachs, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Beth Israel Deaconess, said that “The vast majority [of late-term abortions] are for women with serious medical problems. They are people like very, very young girls who are the victim of rape or incest, and women who discovered a fetus with major birth defects.”

This, of course, is completely at odds with the statistics that show such cases make up less than one percent of all abortions.

References: “Abortion Practitioner Steps Down After Threatening Nurses.” Boston Herald, February 17, 2001; Lisa Lipman. “Doctor Who Allegedly Threatened Nurses Appears in Court.” Associated Press, February 20, 2001; “Abortion Practitioner Steps Down After Threatening Nurses.” Steven Ertelt’s Pro-Life Infonet at

http://www.prolifeinfo.org/infonet.html, February 21, 2001; Larry Tye. “Access to Late-Term Abortion Declines.” Boston Globe, March 19, 2001, page A01.

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