Carolina Gutierrez, only twenty years old, remained on a respirator in an intensive care unit of a Miami hospital over Christmas of 1995. She had been hospitalized since December 21, when her family had called an ambulance in their alarm over her difficulty breathing. She had arrived at the emergency room already in septic shock.Two days of trying to contact Maber Medical Center, where Carolina had undergone an abortion on the 19th, over her husband's objections, had yielded no help. The young mother, who had no medical insurance, had been suffering from fever and pain since the evening of the 19th.
Doctors at the hospital had performed an emergency hysterectomy, trying to halt the spread of infection from her perforated uterus, but the sepsis raged on.
Carolina spent Christmas on a respirator, sepsis raging through her body. Her two children spent most of their time in the care of relatives as their stepfather, Jose Linarte, spent as much time as he could by Carolina's side, waiting and praying.The ICU staff cared as best they could for their critically-ill patient, but the sepsis was getting worse instead of better.
In deference to SoMG, who wants me to tell what I think the point is instead of allowing readers to draw their own conclusions:
I wish that the abortion lobby and prochoice activists would learn to care as much about women like Carolina as they do about women who died decades ago, or about hypothetical women of the future who might die. And I wish we'd all work together so that there's no such thing as a woman so lacking in any sense of other options that she climbs on the abortion table in the first place.
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5 comments:
SoMG,
If you happen to see this comment, I will just say that *this* is a case in point of abortion "clinics" not providing good enough post-procedure care if and when women are injured during an abortion. In a comment on a previous post, you took exception to my pointing out that crisis pregnancy centers might take better care of post-abortive women than some clinics. Well, here ya go. This woman got no care when she critically needed it, lingered for days despite medical care, and then ultimately died of a legal abortion.
I expect you to point out that women die from other procedures, or from shoddy after-care in other medical fields, but WHAT DOES THAT CHANGE ABOUT THIS WOMAN'S DEATH? It was a senseless, needless death that could have been prevented had her "pro-choice" abortionist cared for her properly.
Oh, and go ahead and make whatever stupid comments you want to make about this -- I won't read or respond, because it is obvious you have nothing new to add and just like to quote abortion talking points, while ignoring certain facts that you like to disagree with. I suppose Carolina Gutierrez should just be grateful for any sort of life, rather than the untimely ending of her greatest gift (which is, as the Founding Fathers said, a gift from God).
Merry Christmas
Yeah, this sounds bad, you're supposed to be able to contact the center that does the abortion. This death could most likely have been prevented with antibiotics. Maybe GG could post further info on what is meant by "Two days of trying to contact Maber Medical Center ... had yielded no help." Did they not answer their phone or what?
But how many times is GG gonna post this same case?
Gutierrez Gutierrez Gutierrez. What are you, running out of patients to list?
Kathy, you wrote: "It was a senseless, needless death that could have been prevented had her "pro-choice" abortionist cared for her properly."
And if abortion gets banned, do you think abortion patients will get better aftercare, or worse? All together now, kids.
Happy Winter Solstice to you.
SoMG, this is one we lived out at Life Dynamics. The family got a lawyer to try to help them sue so they could pay the medical bills, which as you can imagine were astronomical. We were getting updates as the whole thing played out. We were praying for this woman and her family. We got the updates as things changed. So it's more of a gut-wrencher for me than the others. It wasn't something I only learned about after the fact.
Usually I blog each woman's story on the anniversary of her death. Some I do on another anniversary, such as the discovery of her body. It's a judgment call. But as I've said before, if I'm boring you, don't let the screen door hit you on the way out. Nobody's holding you here at gunpoint.
You worked with Crutcher???
Wow.
That guy has a gift for shooting himself in the foot.
I remember when he sent out a booklet called "Bottom Feeder" full of "abortionist" jokes to all the med students in the country. The result was, the med students formed Medical Students for Choice, which now represents thousands of students, residents, and profs all over the country. Killed the RTL fantasy of a national shortage of abortion docs, probably forever. Good going, Mark!
Now LIME 5 is selling, or rather failing to sell, on amazon for less than fifty cents, and Crutcher is giving copies away, literally by the case.
I would be very glad indeed if all RTLs were as effective as Crutcher.
You wrote: "I wish that the abortion lobby and prochoice activists would learn to care as much about women like Carolina as they do about women who died decades ago, or about hypothetical women of the future who might die."
We'd care more about women like Carolina if there were more of them to care about. Your implied suggestion that pro-choicers don't care about bad abortion docs is silly. The leader of the charge against serial-molester-and-abortionist Lawrence Reich was Senator Barbara Boxer, the most pro-choice senator.
You wrote: "And I wish we'd all work together so that there's no such thing as a woman so lacking in any sense of other options that she climbs on the abortion table in the first place."
That would not make the women safer.
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