Canadian Woman Survives Botched Abortion in Montreal That Nearly Killed Her
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
October 16, 2009
Montreal, Quebec (LifeNews.com) — A Canadian woman barely survived a botched legal second-trimester abortion that nearly killed her. Christelle Dupuis-Labelle, 19, was three months into her pregnancy when she went to the CLSC des Faubourgs abortion center in Quebec for an abortion that didn’t go as expected.
After a morning abortion, Dupuis-Labelle spent two hours recovering from the procedure before issuing complaints that she was bleeding heavily from it.
Despite the problems, the young woman tells a Canadian newspaper that the abortion center let her leave.
"There was lots of blood," she told the Le Journal de Montreal in an interview on Wednesday. "I told a nurse, but they let me go anyway."
Dupuis-Labelle’s boyfriend picked her up form the abortion facility for the 45 minute drive home to St. Jerome, during which her heavy bleeding continued and her pain increased.
"Every step I took, [the blood] flowed," she said. "They said that I had lost much blood and that five minutes later, that it could have been fatal to me."
Early Thursday afternoon, the couple arrived at the hospital in St. Jerome where doctors performed an emergency operation and gave her a complete blood transfusion.
She told the newspaper that physicians informed her she could have died from the botched abortion.
"They saved my life," she said. "It traumatized me."
after unsuccessfully trying to reach the abortion practitioner at CLSC des Faubourgs to inform him of the problems, she issued complaints with the Jeanne-Mance Health Centre and the Quebec College of Physicians.
"I intend to do it," she said. "It’s important. This is not acceptable. I thought I was traumatized from the abortion, but I am more so from what has happened after."
The mother of an 8-month old baby, she told Le Journal de Montreal she doesn’t know whether she will be able to have children because of the problems following the failed abortion.
Suzanne Carrière, director of services at the abortion center, told the newspaper that severe bleeding following an abortion is "normal." She ensured that the abortion practitioners at her center, where more than 800 abortions are done annually, are experienced.
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