Abortion victim's mom steps forward

Operation Rescue West is reporting on the young woman who died from an abortion in Massachusetts this month. Twenty-two-year-old Laura Hope Smith died September 13, 2007, during an abortion perpetrated by Rapin Osathanondh at Women Health Clinic in Hyannis. Her mother, Eileen Smith, fears that Laura's death will be "swept under the rug". Eileen reportedly told Operation Rescue that two days after her daughter's death, she gave a full interview to the local newspaper. The article about Laura was suppoed to be published on the day of her funeral, but it hasn't been published at all.

According to OR, Eileen didn't know Laura was pregnant, much less that she was planning an abortion. Laura was 13 weeks pregnant when she was taken to the abortion facility by a friend. Eileen contradicted an earlier report that Laura had bled to death, saying that Laura actually went into respiratory arrest during the abortion, then her heart stopped.

OR reports, "Ten days after Laura’s death, Smith met privately for one hour at a public place with Osathanondh. He would only meet with Smith alone and refused to allow even allow her husband to accompany her. Osathanondh admitted that Laura died during the abortion but refused to admit he did anything wrong." OR also reports that Eileen Smith said she was "appalld and sickened" by her daughter's death, but can not give more details due to a pending lawsuit against the abortionist.

“My daughter was 22, healthy, and alive when she walked into that clinic,” OR quotes Eileen Smith. “She didn’t even have a cold. There is no reason for her to be dead.”

OR says, "Laura was born into abject poverty in Hondurus on May 25, 1985, and was abandoned at an orphanage. An American couple that adopted Laura abused her terribly and gave her up. Laura was then adopted by Tom and Eileen Smith, a Christian family that lovingly raised Laura in the Cape Cod community of Sandwich." She graduated from Upper Cape Tech in 2004, trained as a cosmetologist, but she left that field to work in retain management.

It's particularly sad to me that Laura resorted to abortion despite being a Christian active in her local church. Anybody can panic, and our churches need to be teaching young women how to get past the panic that too often leads to the abortion table. OR reports that over 600 people attended Laura's funeral, and at least one young woman decided to reject abortion after learning of Laura's needless death.