By Dave Andrusko
The family of a 24-year-old mother of one who died following a second trimester abortion has retained a lawyer, ABC News reported this morning.
Tonya Reaves died after hemorrhaging late Friday night, Cook County medical examiners said. According to reporter Alexis Shaw, Ms. Reaves was taken by ambulance “from a Chicago Planned Parenthood clinic to Northwestern Memorial Hospital at about 11:00 a.m. Friday,” and “was pronounced dead about 12 hours later, at 11:20 p.m.”
Corey Meyer, the family’s lawyer, told ABC News, “We’re just trying to get all the facts from the incident and determine what the best course of action is.”
“Reaves experienced a complication during the procedure at the reproductive health clinic,” Meyer told Shaw. Meyer “said the family is looking to determine whether the actions of Planned Parenthood or Northwestern Memorial contributed to her death.” Ms. Reaves death was ruled an accident by medical examiners.
Much of the ABC News story consisted of interviews with experts about what might have happened. (The autopsy report will not be available for at least a month.)
Dr. Stephen Weiss, an assistant professor at Emory University in Atlanta, euphemistically explained that a second-trimester “cervical dilation and evacuation [abortion] requires instruments to help remove the fetus”—a.k.a. remove body parts.
Shaw writes, “Proving malpractice generally requires proof that a patient’s negative outcome resulted from treatment below the standard of care.”
Weiss, who had not treated Reaves, said, “If the patient had a clear history of having a bleeding disorder and [Planned Parenthood] never asked those kinds of questions preoperatively, then that would be bad,” adding, “If she didn’t know about it and she said no when they asked those questions, then that’s within the standard of care.”
In addition,
“Weiss said hemorrhaging can be caused by any number of factors, including blood vessel spasms, underlying problems with clotting and placenta tissue left behind in the uterus after an abortion.
“He said that in Reaves’ case, she could have experienced two different kinds of hemorrhaging.
“She could have either bled out through the vagina, or there might have been damage to the arteries that feed into the uterus, which could have caused blood to collect on the abdominal side of the uterus, he said.
“’That could form a big bruise that could burst,’ he said. ‘Then all of a sudden, [the patient] would bleed briskly internally.’”
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