Abortion practitioner Michael Benjamin has had his medical license suspended by the state of Florida for failing to report a suspected case of statutory rape to officials — in what is becoming a problem with the abortion industry nationwide.
The Florida Department of Health voted on Saturday to indefinitely suspend the Tamarac-based abortion practitioner’s medical license after failing to report the case of a 12-year-old girl who was six months pregnant. The Sun Sentinel newspaper indicates the abortion practitioner will challenge the ruling, saying he believed the story the girl told about having consensual sex with a classmate and he thought he didn’t have to report it to authorities.
Authorities later found the boyfriend of the girl’s mother was responsible for impregnating the pre-teen girl and the state health department filed a case against Benjamin saying physicians are required to report cases of suspected sexual abuse of any girl under the age of 16.
Benjamin discovered the girl’s situation because she came to him in November 2009 for an abortion with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend after finding his name through a pro-abortion hotline that refers people to abortion practitioners. The girl’s mother reportedly told Benjamin she did not discover the pregnancy until her daughter was 24 weeks pregnant and the daughter had had no prenatal care for the baby or herself during that time.
Authorities later apprehended the boyfriend, who is now serving 15 years for sexual assault.
Benjamin’s attorney told the state health board the abortion practitioner is a family man and didn’t report the sexual assault because he came away convinced the sex was consensual after talking with those involved for 30 minutes. But the state indicates Benajmin’s own notes show he discussed the case with the girl and her mother and her mother’s boyfriend for only 6-8 minutes.
The newspaper indicates Benjamin’s attorney proposed settling the case by having him pay an $8,000 fine, getting a reprimand and taking remedial courses, but the Florida Board of Medicine rejected the deal and voted to suspend the license until the case is examined further. Now, Benjamin’s attorney says the abortion practitioner will appeal the ruling to an administrative judge and he can keep doing abortions while the case is pending.
Benjamin has been in trouble before and his name came up in association with a failed abortion in April.
An ambulance rushed to the Presidential Women’s Center abortion center in West Palm Beach, Florida to transport a woman to the hospital for emergency care following a botched abortion. That was the third time recently that a woman was transported to the hospital after a botched abortion at an abortion clinic affiliated with the National Abortion Federation. Two women were transported for emergency medical care after failed abortions in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In this latest case in Florida, the ambulance pulled into the back alley where emergency workers loaded a gurney bearing an injured woman and then it sped away to an unknown hospital emergency room. The woman’s condition remains unknown as well. One pro-life advocate who happened to be at the abortion center to inform women of abortion alternatives photographed the ambulance and watched the scene unfold.
The abortion practitioner on duty at the time was Benjamin, who has a history of Medical Board discipline and has a current public complaint on file, according to the Florida Department of Health. Abortion practitioner Frank Rodriguez is also known to do abortions there, according to Operation Rescue, the pro-life group that provided information about the failed abortion to LifeNews.
“This is not the first time we have seen ambulances at Presidential Women’s Center,” said M. Susan Pine, the president of the local pro-life group FACE Life, Inc., who was at the abortion center at the time. “Presidential is simply another butcher shop.”
One day before the West Palm Beach incident, pro-lifers documented two ambulances at the Affiliated Medical Services in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, transporting separate women for emergency care following botched abortions.
“More and more, savvy pro-lifers are documenting the incidents they witness,” said Operation Rescue president Troy Newman. “In exposing these medical emergencies, activists are tearing back the veil so the public can better understand the true dangers of abortion at the hands of men and women who are all too often little better than quacks.”
“Respectable physicians do not sink to the level of being an abortionist, leaving the abortion cartel with only the unscrupulous and the dangerous,” he said. “With abortion clinics nearly unaccountable to the law, it is little wonder that we are seeing so many injuries. We call on the authorities in Florida and Wisconsin to strictly enforce abortion laws already on the books, close these dangerous abortion clinics, and bring the botched abortion perpetrators to justice.”
