The U.K. Daily Mail reported Thursday that “a 40-year-old Colorado woman is suing Planned Parenthood, claiming she received an abortion against her will and then suffered medical injuries when the doctor failed to fully remove the fetus from her uterus in the botched procedure."
According to the complaint, Ayanna Byer had scheduled an appointment at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains in October of 2012. She wanted to take an abortion pill – Mifepristone -- to end her pregnancy. But when Byer arrived, clinic staff told her that her eight-weeks pregnancy was too far along to be terminated through the use of a pill and pressured her to proceed with a surgical abortion.
Byer agreed to the surgical procedure, but only if she could she could receive IV anesthesia. Although clinic staff could not get the IV started, the doctor came to start the procedure anyway.
“At this time,” the complaint states further, “Plaintiff immediately told the Planned Parenthood Doctor to stop and that she did not want to go through with the abortion procedure because she had not received any anesthetic.”
Plaintiff also informed Planned Parenthood Doctor and agents or employees of Planned Parenthood Defendants that she believed this to be a sign she should not go through with the abortion.
The complaint further states that – despite Byer’s protests -- clinic staff restrained her while the doctor performed the abortion procedure against her will.
At this time, the Planned Parenthood Doctor turned on the vacuum machines and told Plaintiff it was too late to stop.
During the 7-minute abortion, Byer was fully alert and in extreme pain.
The unidentified doctor “apologized” that Byer felt pain and stopped.
After being escorted to the waiting room, handed prescriptions for a 10-day supply of Vicodin and a 14-day supply of antibiotics, Byer left.
Two days later, still in pain and bleeding heavily, Byer went to the emergency room at the Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs because – according to the lawsuit -- Planned Parenthood informed her that they didn’t provide follow-up care for post-abortion complications.
As Fox News reported Wednesday, Dr. Steven Foley -- the on-call emergency room doctor who treated Byer -- issued a statement saying she “was septic with a high fever and elevated white count” and “required an immediate high-risk surgery to remove the remaining tissue that had been left during the previous procedure done at Planned Parenthood.”
“The remaining tissue” -- the parts of the baby's body the Planned Parenthood doctor left in Byer's uterus -- had caused an infection.
“It is not acceptable to refer your patients to the emergency department and assume the on-call doctor will take care of any complications and assume all the risk associated with the complications,” Foley wrote further in his statement.
This is not the first time Planned Parenthood faced legal retribution for a botched abortion.
Less than a year ago, Examiner reported that 24-year-old Tonya Reaves bled to death at Northwestern Memorial Hospital after receiving an abortion at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Chicago on July 20, 2012.
On Jan. 10, One News Now reported that – on top of one lawsuit filed against Planned Parenthood by Reaves' mother, a second lawsuit was filed by her surviving son – Alvin -- and the boy's father.
As reported by Examiner, Alvin had just turned one when his mother died.
On Feb. 7, the Thomas More Society – “a national public interest law firm” – announced it had “filed a formal administrative complaint with the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation (“IDPR”), urging in the public interest that the IDPR undertake an immediate investigation as to whether substandard medical care led to” the death of Reaves.
“This year will be remembered as the year Planned Parenthood declared its commitment to making the next generation the healthiest ever,” PP President Cecile Richards and Chair Cecilia Boon announced with pride in its 2011-2012 annual report, issued Jan. 4 of this year.
The generosity of several key donors and funders enabled Planned Parenthood Federation of America to establish its key strategic priorities for a five-year period and launch significant initiatives toward this vision.
Despite the October report by CNS News that Vice President Joe Biden ridiculed Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood – promoting the misguided notion that, rather than being prohibited by law from using taxpayer money to fund abortions, Planned Parenthood “under law cannot perform any abortion” – the report announced that Planned Parenthood and its affiliates across the nation performed 333,964 abortions during 2010-11, 1,686 more than its 2008-09 record of 332,278.
The report also noted that the federal government provided Planned Parenthood with a record-breaking $542 million in taxpayer-funded “generosity” – approximately 45 percent of its budget -- in fiscal 2012.
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