RealChoice: May 16, 2014: 17th FPA Death (That I Know Of)

Thursday, May 16, 2024

May 16, 2014: 17th FPA Death (That I Know Of)

An autopsy report tells the story of the seventeenth young woman I know of now to have died after an abortion at that National Abortion Federation flagship: Family Planning Associates Medical Group.

To preserve her confidentiality, I have given her the pseudonym "Kyla Ellis."

Kyla was 23 years old and about 11 weeks pregnant when she went to Family Planning Associate Medical Group at 601 S. Westmoreland Avenue in Los Angeles for an abortion on May 14, 2014. Like other young Black women, she was at higher risk of death than a white woman would be.

The day after the abortion, Kyla suffered agonizing abdominal pain. Her partner, whom I will call "Benjamin," called an ambulance, which rushed her to Centinela Hospital. She arrived at around 3:30 that afternoon. Kyla rated her pain at 10 on a scale of 10. Bright, fresh blood was flowing from her vagina. She couldn't pass urine at all. Hospital staff used a catheter to drain her bladder of about 200 cc of bloody urine.

Doctors decided that Kyla needed more intensive care than Centinela was able to provide. Kyla rode by ambulance to Kaiser West Los Angeles. She arrived shortly after midnight on May 16. At first she was awake, but at around 1:40 a.m. her gaze turned glassy and she became unresponsive. Staff took her to the lab for a CT scan, but on arrival Kyla went into cardio respiratory arrest. All efforts to revive her failed and she was pronounced dead at 2:45 a.m.

The autopsy found her uterus boggy and enlarged. The endometrium (lining) had been scraped away.

Kyla had bled to death.

The Centers for Disease Control published back in 1983, "Deaths from hemorrhage associated with legal induced abortion should not occur." In every hemorrhage death they investigated, "Lack of adequate postoperative monitoring or treatment of hemorrhagic shock" was a factor. Kyla had been sent home with undiagnosed bleeding. That shouldn't happen. But it does happen, and not just to Kyla. It happened to other women, such as Eurice Agbagaa, Mickey Apodaca, Leigh Ann Alford, Gloria Aponte, Jacqueline Bailey, Junette Barnes, Myrtha Baptist, Cassandra Bleavens, Belinda Byrd, Dorothy Brown, Teresa Causey, Patricia Chacon, "Susanna Chisolm," Pamela Colson, Twila Coulter, Liliana Cortez, Mary Ann Dancy, Barbaralee Davis, Glenda Davis, Synthia Dennard, Anjelica Duarte, Evelyn Dudley, Gladyss Estanislao, Linda Fondren, Kathleen Gilbert, Maria Gomez, Shary Graham, Doris Grant, Sharon Hamplton, Lou Ann Herron, Louchrisser Jackson, Sandra Milton, Ruth Montero, Denise Montoya, Sylvia Moore, Dorothy Muzorewa, Guadalupe Negron, Mary Paredez, Shirley Payne, Mary Pena, Katrina Poole, Tonya Reaves, Magdalena Rodriguez, Carole Schaner, Margaret Smith, Jennifer Suddeth, Cheryl Tubbs, and Latachie Veal.