Abortion Practitioner Indicted for Killing Woman in Botched Legal Abortion
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 16, 2008
Hyannis, MA (LifeNews.com) — Abortion practitioner Rapin Osathanondh has been charged with manslaughter after killing one of his patients in a botched legal abortion. Osathanondh did the abortion on 22-year-old Laura Smith, who died in September at his Women’s Health Center abortion business.
Osathanondh has been indicted by a grand jury after an investigation by local police, state police and the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine. He will be arraigned sometime within the next week.
Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe released information about the charges in a statement today and he called Smith’s death a “terrible tragedy.”
“I’ve been in constant communication with Laura’s mother and other family members and I know how this has affected them and it’s a terrible thing," he said.
He said that Osathanondh’s medical negligence and deficient actions led to her death.
"The evidence made out a case of willful, wanton and reckless conduct with respect to how this medical procedure was carried out,” O’Keefe told the Boston Herald today.
The pro-life group Operation Rescue has been closely following the case and it told LifeNews.com Wednesday that Smith’s mother Eileen saw how the grand jury exposed attempts to cover up the details of Smith’s death.
Smith said a Sheriff’s Deputy in another county provided Osathanondh and his abortion center staff with CPR training, then backdated the session to a date prior to Laura’s death. The official apparently did so with the full knowledge that someone had recently died at the abortion center.
Osathanondh and his staff had been uncertified in CPR until that time, Smith said.
"I’m appalled that an officer of the law would be involved in that," Eileen Smith said. "Thank God this has been exposed."
The group indicated Smith has filed a complaint in Bristol County against the deputy.
"We are gratified that Osathanondh will have to account for Laura’s death in a court of law," Operation Rescue spokesperson Cheryl Sullenger told LifeNews.com.
"It is not enough that he can no longer practice medicine. He must be held legally responsible for his crimes that resulted in the death of this young woman," she said. "Only then can we say that some small measure of justice has been served."
In February, Osathanondh gave up his medical license permanently after a state medical board suspended it following the abortion death.
The Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine revoked Osathanondh’s license prior to that and Osathanondh promised he would not pursue a medical license in any other state.
Eileen Smith told LifeNews.com at the time that "After his license was suspended he came back to the medical board with his lawyer and voluntarily resigned his license forever."
"He is never to practice in this state or in any other state with no appeal," she added.
Officials say Lauren Smith died from "cardiac pulmonary arrest during anesthesia during a voluntary termination of pregnancy" — an evaluation Eileen Smith has been trying to get officials to understand.
As LifeNews.com first reported, a pro-life group obtained records from emergency services in Massachusetts that reveal the callousness abortion business staff had towards Laura’s situation.
Transcripts of a 911 call reveal what one pro-life group calls a "cold-hearted dispassion."
Smith has pursued legal action against Osathanondh but her case was awaiting the autopsy report.
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