News to Me: The Death of Roselle Owens

I was searching for the newest case of Planned Parenthood badness to show a skeptical friend who dismissed example after example after example because the incidents had taken place too long ago to have any reflection on what sort of organization Planned Parenthood is today -- as if at some point in the recent past they bottomed out, went into some sort of rehab, and found a sponsor.

What I stumbled across wasn't recent. It was just tragic. Needless and tragic.

Roselle proudly celebrating non-alcoholic
just two months before her fatal abortion.

Roselle Owens was a vibrant 17-year-old high school student, thinking ahead to college, when she discovered that she was pregnant in 2009.

She made the mistake of entrusting herself to Planned Parenthood of New York City. She went to the Margaret Sanger Center for an abortion on the morning of April 11. Dr. Gerald Zupnick, who has a history of malpractice, performed the abortion under general anesthesia. The anesthesia was contracted out to employees of Somnia, also called Outpatient Anesthesia Services.

Zupnick noted in the operative report that the abortion was "uneventful," completing the procedure at 9:20 a.m. Shortly thereafter, staff found that Roselle's breathing was labored and her blood oxygen levels had fallen. A lawsuit filed by Roselle's half-brother on behalf of himself, Roselle's father, and her twin brother asserted that neither Somnia employees, Zupnick, or Planned Parenthood's other staff properly monitored Roselle. The ambulance was not summoned for her until 9:43 a.m., over 20 minutes after the abortion was completed. EMS services transported Roselle to St. Vincent's Medical Center at 10:05 a.m.

Staff at the hospital were able to stabilize Roselle, but the damage had already been done. Roselle remained on a ventilator at St. Vincent's until her death on September 8. She died when she should have been just getting settled into her new college life.

Both Zupnick and Planned Parenthood settled off-the-books, thus ending the paper trail.