Posted on 07/02/2003 2:54:52 AM PDT by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - Pro-life activists, pointing to the death last year of a Los Angeles woman that was allegedly connected to a botched abortion, took their protest Tuesday to the Los Angeles office of California Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.
Davis was otherwise occupied with a budget stalemate getting worse by the minute. The state officially went broke Tuesday at midnight with the failure of the legislature and Davis to agree to a new budget that must address a record $38.2 billion deficit. California's economy, alone, is the world's fifth largest.
It wasn't the budget - but Davis' position to allow allegedly "unsafe" and "unregulated" abortions in the state that prompted Tuesday afternoon's sit-in by members and supporters of the California-based youth group, Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust (SAH).
The activists said they were "speaking out on behalf of the 1/3 of our generation who have been killed by abortion," feeling an "obligation to tell their story for them and compel the world to recognize us as the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust."
Information recently released by the state regarding the death of Diana Lopez following an abortion at a Los Angeles Planned Parenthood clinic in February of 2002 has mobilized many of the pro-life activists. Lopez bled to death after her abortionist, Dr. Mark Maltzer, allegedly punctured her cervix.
Just this past May, the California Department of Health Services (CDHS) issued a report citing the Planned Parenthood clinic for numerous health code violations in connection with Lopez' death. While CDHS now states it is satisfied the clinic has addressed its deficiencies, the California Medical Board is investigating whether to revoke Maltzer's medical license. Maltzer and the clinic are also the defendants in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Lopez' family.
SAH's immediate goal is to get a meeting with Governor Davis in order to lobby for the revocation of Maltzer's medical license and a statewide investigation of Planned Parenthood clinics.
"We want to make him aware that abortion is one of the largest unregulated industries in the United States," said SAH spokesperson Danielle White.
Attorney Jack Schuler, who is representing Lopez' family in the lawsuit, blames the Planned Parenthood clinic for allegedly failing to advise Lopez against the procedure based on her low hemoglobin levels and for inadequately dilating her cervix, which increased the risk of laceration during the abortion.
Schuler also alleges that Maltzer was in such a rush, he took only six minutes to complete a procedure that Planned Parenthood's own website describes as a ten to twenty minute operation.
The National Abortion Federation (NAF) maintains abortion is one of the safest and most common surgical procedures, and that "perforation of the wall of the uterus occurs in less than 1/2 of one percent of cases."
"The problem with the clinic is that they know this practice is going on," Schuler told CNSNews.com . "These doctors that they're hiring, they're not local doctors. They're doctors that sort of ride the circuit," he said.
Because there is no pre-existing doctor/patient relationship when a woman goes in for an abortion, Schuler said, the abortion procedures taken on the nature of an "assembly line."
"These doctors travel from town to town doing abortions at these clinics. And what Planned Parenthood does is it has the patients lined up waiting for the doctor to come in, spend minimal time with the patient and do them as quickly as possible."
Schuler emphasized that the problems are not isolated. He pointed to another case in 2000 at the same Planned Parenthood Clinic in Los Angeles where Diana Lopez obtained her abortion. In the second incident, the abortionist allegedly spent six minutes performing the procedure, lacerated the patient's cervix, ruptured her uterus, perforated the sigmoid colon and allowed 2 liters of blood to be lost and three hours of post-surgery to pass before the woman was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where she did survive.
Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust want the governor to intervene and claim his refusal to do so amounts to "hypocrisy."
"Davis claims to be pro-women ... if he's really concerned about women, then he really should do what is necessary, which would be regulating this industry that he stands behind," White said.
Despite repeated requests for reaction to this story, Planned Parenthood Federation of America offices in New York and Washington, D.C., did not make anyone available to CNSNews.com.
See Earlier Story:
Abortionist Involved in Woman's Death Awaits Word on Medical License
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