SUMMARY: Michelle Thames, age 18, died November 17, 1987 after an abortion performed at Her Medical Clinic in Los Angeles, CA.
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| "Her Medical Clinic," a fake clinic with a shameful death toll |
Eighteen-year-old Michelle Thames of Lynwood, California had no way of knowing that Her Medical Clinic wasn't actually a clinic. It was the private practice of notorious quack abortionist Dr. Leo Kenneally. Maria Soto had died there after being injected with drugs and left unattended in September of 1985, so the state had shut the place down. Keneally solved the problem by simply re-opening the place as his private practice while maintaining the illusion that it was a licensed clinic. He continued to perform abortions, and contracted with at least one other doctor, Mahlon Douglas Cannon, to perform abortions there.
Kenneally's fake clinic was reportedly kept "in a filthy and unsanitary condition." But it wasn't a legitimate clinic so there was no jurisdiction for authorities to inspect it and shut it down.
The next woman to die there was Donna Heim, a 20-year-old nursery school teacher who was given anesthesia drugs that were contraindicated due to her asthma. When her airway closed, Cannon continued to make unskilled attempts to revive her, including just sticking his fingers in her mouth to open her airway. Donna suffered fatal brain damage from lack of oxygen and died on August 13, 1986.
Nobody at the fake clinic seemed to have learned a lesson from Donna's death. Just a month later, Lilliana Cortez suffered a seizure during her abortion and wasn't transferred to a qualified facility for 40 minutes. She died five days later.
It was this inept collection of unskilled professionals that Michelle trusted with her life on November 17, 1987. Just as with Lilliana Cortez a little over a year earlier, Michelle went into a seizure during the abortion. Just as with Lilliana Cortez, instead of stopping the procedure and addressing the issue, Kenneally continued with the abortion.
Even after he had finished the procedure, the medical board said, Kenneally delayed calling an ambulance to transfer Michelle to a properly-equipped hospital, just as he had done 13 months earlier with Lilliana Cortez.
Michelle died later that day. Her family filed suit, claiming that Her Medical Clinic staff had made inadequate attempts to resuscitate Michelle.
The battle over Kenneally's medical license turned political after it was suspended by the medical board over the appalling conditions at Her Medical Clinic. Former state medical board executive director Dixon Arnett's said that Leo F. Kenneally's case was "the most egregious I have seen, bar none." But a judge restored Kenneally's license on the grounds that he was doing a public service "providing abortions" in an "underserved area."
The investigation of patient deaths wasn't the first time Kenneally got in trouble. His license had been suspended in 1979 for Medi-Cal theft, and previously in 1975 for records-keeping violations.
Watch Another Death at a Fake Clinic on YouTube.
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Sources:
- "Deaths of 3 Women Following Abortions Spur Clinic Probes," Los Angeles Times, February 23, 1988
- "State Panel Accuses MD of Negligence in 3 Deaths," Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1990
- "Watching a Watchdog," Los Angeles Times, January 31, 1993
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