Police are investigating a hospital in Musashino, Japan where a newly married woman had an abortion and then died a few days later, The Japan Times reports.
The 23-year-old’s husband filed a criminal claim against the Mizuguchi Hospital on Tuesday in relation to his wife’s death in July. In the claim, the young husband and his lawyer said the doctor who performed his wife’s abortion was not accredited to do abortions, and the hospital hid information from them about the doctor.
“I have no words to express my anger,” the husband, 26, said. “I hope they will be severely punished. We were supposed to live happily together and this happened in less than two weeks (after getting married).”
According to the report, the couple got married on July 6, and the wife had the abortion on July 8. She died on July 14 from heart failure, according to an autopsy. There were no details about why the woman aborted her unborn child or what stage she was in the pregnancy.
Here’s more from the report:
According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, surgical abortion procedures can only be performed by doctors accredited by prefectural medical associations under the Maternal Protection Law. The clinic has confirmed that the doctor who carried out the surgery had no such accreditation.
The hospital released a statement including an apology on Tuesday. It also admitted that hospital officials were aware of the doctor’s accreditation status.
“We admit and take into our hearts our lack of awareness,” the statement said. “We reflect on how our conduct has resulted in a fatal incident and we will do our utmost to prevent any reoccurrence of similar incidents.”
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The hospital also revealed that the doctor, who quit the hospital in October, had conducted 12 abortion surgeries between May and September, including the one resulting in the woman’s death.
An abortion almost always is deadly for an unborn child, but it also can be deadly to the mother. In the United States, at least four women died in 2012 after having legal abortions, the Centers for Disease Control reports.
In the past few years, LifeNews has reported several women’s deaths due to botched abortions. In 2015, a pro-life group in California learned that a woman reportedly died after a botched abortion in San Diego. In 2014, Lakisha Wilson died after a botched abortion at an Ohio facility; and 22-year-old Tonya Reaves bled to death after a Chicago Planned Parenthood clinic allegedly botched her abortion in 2012.
While abortion activists claim that abortions are safer than childbirth, there is little data to prove the claim. Dr. Freda Bush, an OB-GYN and clinical instructor at the University of Mississippi, said abortions can lead to serious complications or even death for women as well as their unborn babies, but many complications are not reported.
Women experiencing abortion complications often go to, or are instructed to go to, the emergency room by themselves, and many are too ashamed to say that they had an abortion, Bush said during an Evangelicals for Life conference in January.
“So, we really don’t know how many abortions are being done, we don’t know how many people are dying of abortions because the numbers are not being kept,” Bush said.
Abortion activists cite their own studies claiming that abortion is safer than childbirth, but studies in Finland, Denmark and the U.S. have found evidence that abortion is not safer for women than giving birth to their children. The 2012 Denmark study surveyed nearly half a million medical records and found a significantly higher maternal death rate after abortions, compared to childbirth.
LifeNews Note: File photo.
