September 16: An Immigrant Family's Dreams Destroyed

Dr. David Gluck's medical license had been revoked for three years after selling controlled substances to finance his gambling addiction. Two months later he was still working as Medical Director at Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health (C.R.A.S.H.) when abortion patient "K.B." died in 1988. Authorities who inspected the clinic after K.B's death found the place filthy, and noted that K.B.'s post-operative report charted her as "pink, responsive, alert," even though she had gone into full cardio-respiratory arrest during the procedure. Authorities shut the place down, leaving the unlicensed Gluck unemployed.

He found work, though, at Choices Women's Medical Center in Queens. The Choices clinic director said "We are firmly committed to helping people who are skilled medical professionals who have had a fall from grace."

Their kindness to Gluck was not a kindness to 36-year-old Alerte Desanges, an immigrant from Haiti. Told that her 19-week fetus had deformities, Alerte went to Choices for a safe, legal abortion on September 16, 1994. She didn't survive the day.

Staff said that after Gluck had completed her abortion, Alerte was "feisty, telling nurses she wanted to go home. Then all of a sudden, she coded, she went into cardiac arrest." Her blood pressure fell. Staff attempted to revive her, then transported her to a hospital. Her death was tentatively attributed to amniotic fluid embolism by staff.

Alerte's 66-year-old mother, who speaks only French, was described as throwing her hands in the air and sobbing, "What are we going to do? What are we going to do? We can't go back to Haiti." Alerte had supported her mother and three daughters working as a caretaker for an elderly woman, and had just bought a small house in Brooklyn. With her, the family's dreams died.