Woman Dies at Marie Stopes Abortion Business in Australia

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Dec 20, 2011   |   3:00PM   |   Croydon, Australia

A woman has died from a failed legal abortion in Australia run in Croydon, Victoria by the British-based Marie Stopes International abortion business.

A report in The Age newspaper confirms a 42-year-old woman died on Sunday — days after the abortion she obtained last week. A representative of the Coroners Court of Victoria said the abortion death would be investigated.

Officials with the Victoria health department visited the abortion facility yesterday and made a determination that it was not operating outside the Australian state’s health and safety laws.

The abortion death took place at an abortion facility that has already drawn international attention because it employed an abortion practitioner who is accused of purposefully infecting more than 50 women with hepatitis C during 2008 and 2009. Anesthesiologist James Latham Peters is due back in court in May for the remainder of the hearings in the case.

Dr Mark Schulberg, the owner of the abortion business has had problems in the past, according to the newspaper.

He “was in 2009 found guilty of unprofessional conduct for failing to gain legal consent to perform a late-term abortion on an intellectually disabled woman,” it reported. “And earlier this year it was revealed that a 40-year-old woman was left fighting for her life in the Box Hill Hospital after Dr Schulberg performed a late-term abortion surgery on her. He is still being investigated by the practitioners’ board after 40-year-old mother Pheap Sem was rushed to hospital in August in a critical condition after a late-term abortion.”

“In 2008 he was found guilty of professional misconduct by the board for failing to gain legal consent for the 25-week abortion of an intellectually disabled woman raped by her father,” the paper continued. “A year later he was found guilty of inappropriately prescribing painkillers.”

Marie Stopes International chief executive Maria Deveson Crabbe told The Age that the international abortion business would assist with the investigation.

“It is with great sadness that we confirm the death of a female patient, who attended our associate registered day procedure centre in Maroondah on Wednesday, December 14, passed away at Box Hill Hospital on Sunday, December 18,” she said. “Due to patient confidentiality it is not possible to go into any details about the patient or the service they received.”

The death follows on the heels of an England-basde Marie Stopes International abortion practitioner getting struck from the list of licensed physicians in England after he nearly killed a woman in a failed abortion.

Phanuel Dartey perforated the uterus of an Ireland woman who went to the UK for an abortion and left parts of the unborn baby inside of her after supposedly completing the abortion he did at the Marie Stopes International Clinic in Ealing where he worked.

The woman, according to a report in the Independent, returned home following the abortion but was late taken tot he hospital where she remained in critical condition for two months after the botched abortion.

Dartey was also accused of botching laser surgery on five other women and the combined actions prompted a disciplinary panel to rule that he posted a risk to the public by engaging in medical malpractice and dishonesty. The panel ultimately said “his integrity cannot be relied upon.” The General Medical Council cited “unforeseen and distressing consequences” from the cosmetic surgeries.