Family of Woman Who Died in Botched Abortion Sues Planned Parenthood

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 26, 2003

Los Angeles, CA (LifeNews.com) -- The family of a woman who died from a botched abortion has filed a lawsuit against the Planned Parenthood abortion facility where it was performed and against the abortion practitioner responsible.

The lawsuit filed in Superior Court alleges that both Planned Parenthood and abortion practitioner Mark Maltzer are responsible for the death of Diana Lopez, 25, of Huntington Park, California.

Lopez died Feb. 28, 2002, from "a hemorrhage due to traumatic anterior cervical perforation due to dilation and evacuation for elective termination of pregnancy at 18 weeks," according to a deputy medical examiner at the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. In other words, she bled to death after her cervix was punctured during her abortion.

Medical records indicate that because of extensive bleeding following the abortion, Lopez was taken by ambulance from the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in East Los Angeles to nearby Los Angeles County/University of Southern California Women's and Children's Hospital. There, surgeons performed an emergency hysterectomy, but Lopez died soon thereafter.

"It was wrong. It was wrong," said Judy Lopez, Diana's older sister. "She was healthy. She was fine."

Normally the type of abortion procedure Lopez had takes 30 minutes. Jack Schuler, the Lopez family's Van Nuys attorney, said the medical record indicated the D&E abortion she had lasted only six minutes, an obvious sign of sloppiness and lack of attention to detail.

Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles did not respond to a LifeNews.com request for a statement. Previously the abortion business referred questions about the case to their Los Angeles attorney, Gary Fields. Fields refused to comment. In a response filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Fields denied the allegations.

Recently the California Department of Health Services released a report revealing that Planned Parenthood did not follow established medical procedures.

The report found that an abortion should not have been performed on Lopez.

Both the Department of Health Services and Planned Parenthood said that the problems that led to the violations have been fixed.

Despite the proclamation, the California Pro-Life Council says the state needs to be more responsible in tracking and curbing abortion-related deaths.

"The fact of the matter is that abortion deaths often do not show up in the statistics until or unless there is a court-case surrounding them, and abortion complications are gathered and reported nowhere in California," explained Jan Carroll, CPLC's Associate Director.

"Several attempts have been made in the California Legislature, without success, to require abortion reporting that would shed some light on the carnage of this largely unregulated industry," Carroll told LifeNews.com. "But it is clear that healthy women undergoing abortions are being subjected to dangerous and unnecessary risks that they otherwise would not face if they carried their babies to term."

Maltzer, who is the medical director of Pregnancy Consultation Center in Sacramento, is still performing abortions at some of the 12 Planned Parenthood facilities in the Los Angeles area, but is under investigation by the Medical Board of California. The board's spokeswoman did not provide details about the content of the probe.

Why Maltzer, whose practice is in Sacramento, was working in the Los Angeles abortion facility is not clear.

Schuler suggested the motive was financial.

"They get the clinics to do all the prep work, then they line the patients up in a cattle call," he said. "They never see the patient until just before surgery, and then spend five or six minutes with the patient and are on to the next one."

CPLC's Carroll said more oversight of abortion facilities is needed.

"The likelihood that Diana Lopez would be alive today if she had not walked into that Planned Parenthood Clinic is virtually a certainty," Carroll said.