Downey, CA – Operation Rescue has obtained a 911 recording of a medical emergency at Family Planning Associates (FPA) abortion clinic in Downey, California, that indicated an abortion patient had suffered massive hemorrhage. The incident took place two days before Christmas.
The FPA employee who placed the call initially indicated that they simply needed to transfer a patient to the hospital. When the dispatcher questioned further, the abortion clinic employee responded, “It’s a patient who’s no longer bleeding, but her hematocrit’s off to 19. So we want to transfer her for a – to Downy Regional to get a transfusion.”
The caller later indicated that the cause of the emergency was a medication abortion.
A hematocrit level of 19 is considered seriously low and is indicative of massive hemorrhage, which is a known complication of medication abortion. A patient with this number would have lost over half her blood volume and would require a transfusion. Hematocrit tests measure the percentage of red blood cells in the blood. A normal range for women is 36-45.
“The fact that this patient had lost so much blood is extremely worrisome. Medication abortions are unsupervised and this woman could very well have died from blood loss,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue. “This is more evidence that the abortion pill is not as safe as abortionists would have us believe and more evidence that the number of abortion pill complications are grossly unreliable. No one would have never known what happened to this 23-year old woman if it had not been for a pro-life activist on the scene at the time.”
An eyewitness to the incident, Rob Saunders, described the scene to Operation Rescue.
“The fire truck was in the street blocking a lane of traffic while the ambulance was at the rear of the building,” he said. “I pray the girl is okay.”
Saunders indicated that this is the second such medical emergency he has witnessed at the Downey FPA, which is located next door to Downey High School.
Nurse Practitioner Heasook Kum is listed as working at the Downey abortion clinic. In California, Nurse Practitioners are allowed under a new law passed last year to do abortions without supervision from a licensed physician.
“Unfortunately, we expect to see more of these kinds of abortion-related medical emergencies with the new influx of less-qualified non-physicians doing abortions in California where women routinely suffered from sub-standard abortion practices even before the new law was passed,” said Newman.
Since 2001, at least twenty-two women have died worldwide from complications to the abortion pill. However, that number could be very low since abortion clinics have a vested interested in keeping such incidents secret.
Family Planning Associates, which consists of 22 abortion clinics throughout Southern California, has recorded at least 16 abortion-related deaths and countless complications, the most recent of which occurred at its Bakersfield location earlier this month.
Read the 911 recording transcript.