Tuesday, March 25, 2025

March 25, 2000: Yet Another FPA Death

Summary: 22-year-old Marie Rodriguez was one of well over a dozen deaths after abortions at Family Planning Associates Medical Group, the largest chain of for-profit abortion facilities in the world.

Albany Medical Surgical aka FPA Washington Blvd.
At a National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar in the 1990s, Michael Burnhill of the Alan Guttmacher Institute scolded Steve Lichtenberg for "playing Russian roulette" with patients' lives by performing risky abortions in an outpatient setting and treating serious complications on site in his procedure room rather than transporting them to a hospital. Evidently Lichtenberg chose not to listen to Burnhill's warning.

On March 25, 2000, 22-year-old Maria Rodriguez went to Lichtenberg's Albany Medical Surgical Center, a National Abortion Federation member clinic in Chicago, for a late second trimester abortion. 

Lichtenberg estimated her pregnancy at 18 weeks and went ahead with the what a later expert consultant called "a seemingly uncomplicated (albeit short) procedure." 

At about 9:00 a.m., Maria was showing signs of shock from hemorrhage. The expert consultant pointed out that Lichtenberg had failed to notice that he had ruptured Maria's uterus. Lichtenburg flushed out her uterus with a dilute solution of Vasopressin, a hormone used sometimes to control bleeding. He also had pressure applied to her uterus. But, the consultant noted," At no time were further attempts made to ascertain the cause of the bleeding or to explain the discrepancy between the marked decrease of hematocrit and the seemingly moderate blood loss."

A slightly rectangular logo, a medium blue square in the background, a forest green cursive F extending off the right and left edges, and a lavender square with "FPA" in all caps in white

Lichtenberg diagnosed DIC, a clotting disorder caused by triggers such as amniotic fluid in the blood stream. He started treating Maria with Fresh Frozen Plasma (FPP) at 9:34. Her hematocrit continued to fall, and she was showing abnormal EKG readings. Her heart was racing and she was continuing to bleed. She wasn't given a transfusion, or transported quickly to a hospital so that a transfusion could be administered there. Lichtenberg also didn't administer any additional medications to help control Maria's bleeding.

At around 10:15 a.m., Maria appeared to have been somewhat stabilized, but "no attempt was made to determine the cause of the bleeding with ultrasound evaluation" or to tie off the bleeding artery. By 10:30, her hematocrit had fallen to 15%, meaning she had less than half the red blood cells needed to carry oxygen to her brain. Finally, an hour and a half after Maria suffered her life-threatening injury, and an hour after Lichtenberg had diagnosed the dangerous clotting disorder, it occurred to somebody to call 911 and have Maria taken to a properly equipped hospital. By the time she arrived there, her hematocrit was 3.5%, less than 10% of what it should have been. Doctors at the hospital tried to save her, to no avail, she died that evening, leaving behind a four-year-old daughter.

Other women to die from abortions at FPA facilities include:

  • Denise Holmes, age 24, 1970
  • Mary Pena, age 43, 1984
  • Patricia Chacon, age 16, 1984
  • Josefina Garcia, age 37, 1985
  • Laniece Dorsey, age 17, 1986
  • Joyce Ortenzio, age 32, 1988
  • Tami Suematsu, age 19, 1988
  • Susan Levy, age 30, 1992
  • Deanna Bell, age 13, 1992
  • Christine Mora, age 18, 1994
  • Ta Tanisha Wesson, age 24, 1995
  • Nakia Jorden, 1998
  • Maria Leho, 1999
  • Kimberly Neil, 2000
  • Chanelle Bryant, age 22, 2004
  • "Kyla Ellis," age 23, 2014

  • Watch Livening Up the Day Costs Woman her Life on YouTube.
    Watch Livening Up the Day Costs Woman her Life on YouTube.

    Sources:

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