Australia Abortion Practitioner Who Botched Abortion Gets Appeal Hearing

International   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jul 26, 2007   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Australia Abortion Practitioner Who Botched Abortion Gets Appeal Hearing Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 26
, 2007

Sydney, Australia (LifeNews.com) — An Australia abortion practitioner who was convicted of illegally giving a woman a dangerous abortion drug will have a November hearing on her appeal of the conviction. Suman Sood failed to conduct a medical examination on a patient she gave a dangerous abortion drug to that resulted in a botched abortion.

The woman gave birth to a premature baby boy in the toilet in her bathroom at home and by the time paramedics could rush the infant to the hospital, he was dead.

Sood should have faced 10 years in prison for the original charges related to the botched abortion but went free after getting a bond for good behavior in prison during the trial.

The New South Wales court jury also decided that Sood should not be able to practice medicine for 10 years after ruling she was guilty of medical misconduct.

The abortion practitioner has appealed the decision and she will get a November hearing on that appeal. The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal decided on Thursday that she will get a two-hour hearing on November 15.

Following the conviction in the illegal abortion case, Sood voluntarily took her name off of the nation’s medical register and will no longer do abortions. She had done more than 10,000 before convicted of the improper abortion.

In January, Sood was accused of fabricating evidence to mislead the board in the investigation. She faces five charges relating to the obstruction of justice and she has pleaded not guilty to them.

Sood told the medical board that she never did the illegal abortion on which she was convicted and claimed she referred the patient in question to a facility that does late-term abortions.

Arthur Richard Allen, an anesthesiologist, corroborated Sood’s story with a paper proving he phoned the abortion facility on Sood’s behalf. Police now say the paper was fake and Sood could face a sentence of 10 to 14 years if she’s convicted on the charges.