LIFE DIGEST: Massachusetts abortion doctor indicted in death
- Jul 22, 2008
A Massachusetts grand jury has indicted a doctor in whose care a 22-year-old woman died after an abortion in September.
The Barnstable County Grand Jury charged Rapin Osathanondh with manslaughter July 16 in the death of Laura Smith. Smith was pronounced dead Sept. 13 at Cape Cod Hospital after being taken there from Osathanondh’s Hyannis, Mass., clinic by ambulance, according to the Cape Cod Times.
The abortion doctor’s “activity and lack of activity amounted to willful and wanton negligence,” said District Attorney Michael O’Keefe, the Times reported.
Osathanondh resigned his medical license in February after he apparently learned the state’s Board of Registration in Medicine had voted to suspend him. The board accepted Osathanondh’s resignation, which it described in a news release at the time as a “disciplinary action that permanently removes a physician from practice.”
Eileen Smith, Laura’s mother, said of the indictment, “Nothing can ever bring Laura back to us, but today’s actions [provide] comfort in knowing that justice will prevail.”
Smith, an evangelical, pro-life Christian, did not know her engaged daughter was pregnant. Laura was pro-life and was reared in a Christian home with three other children by Eileen and her husband Tom. Laura had made a profession of faith in Christ and been baptized at the age of 12, her mother said.
Since Laura’s death, Eileen Smith has become outspoken in her support for the pro-life cause.
“As I travel around the country speaking about Laura’s story, I am encouraged that word is getting out and people are being helped and lives are being saved,” she said. “My goal is to also be a catalyst in the laws changing in [Massachusetts] and maybe even beyond.”
She doesn’t regret 7 abortions but has ‘incredible shame’
British single mother Angela Simmons, 39, says she does not regret any of her seven abortions, but she acknowledges she feels “incredible shame.”
Simmons, who lives in southwest England with her 8-year-old son, Ben, is part of an inglorious category – the approximately 50 British women each year who undergo at least their seventh abortion. About 1,300 women had at least their fifth abortion in 2007, according to the Daily Mail.
“The reason why I had so many abortions is that I didn’t want to bring a child into the world unless my situation was perfect – but it never was,” said Simmons, whose seven aborted babies were by five different men. “With each termination I felt it was my responsibility to get on with my own life and forget about it. After each one I just blanked out the emotions and never thought about it. I felt no remorse at all.”
She tried to commit suicide after her third abortion but still had four more of the lethal procedures afterward. All of her abortions were performed at the same clinic, which provided her with little counseling, she said.
“I do wish that someone in those clinics had really sat down with me and talked it through properly,” she said, the Daily Mail reported.
Despite her mixture of not regretting her abortions and feeling “the most incredible shame” about them, Simmons says things will be different if there is another pregnancy.
“If I ever do get pregnant again, I would now not consider having an abortion,” she said. “It is only now I can look back and see just how emotionally painful having them was.”
Mother aborts her son in car
A mother may be charged with homicide for aborting her own child when she could have paid someone else to do it without any legal complications.
A baby boy was pronounced dead early July 20 in the back seat of a vehicle in Chicago, apparently the victim of a self-abortion by his mother in the car, the Chicago Sun Times reported. An autopsy showed the boy died from asphyxia, and his death has been ruled a homicide, according to the newspaper.
Foundation to give ‘Life Prizes’
A new program has been inaugurated to award as much as $600,000 annually to advocates for the pro-life cause in the United States.
The Gerard Health Foundation, which funds pro-life initiatives globally, announced the program, titled “Life Prizes,” July 8. Beginning in January 2009, the awards will be presented to as many as six recipients each year. The prizes will be given to pro-life leaders in such areas as public advocacy, scientific research and legal action.
More than 100 pro-life leaders have been chosen to make nominations for the awards by Aug. 15. Gerard will narrow the field to 20 finalists, who will be reduced by a selection committee to the prize recipients.
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