Woman Describes How Abortion Procedure At Tiller's Facility Nearly Killed Her

Wichita, KS (LifeNews.com)

A woman who arranged for an abortion at the Women's Health Care Services facility run by late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller says an abortion there nearly took her life. The woman, whose name has been kept confidential, shared her story with the pro-life group Operation Rescue.

The woman had the abortion last Tuesday and says abortion practitioner Shelley Sella may have botched an injection she gave the patient.

The injection allegedly caused sepsis, a systemic infection that rapidly spreads throughout the body and can cause rapid death. That is what ultimately killed Holly Patterson and some other women who died from the dangerous RU 486 abortion drugs they obtained at Planned Parenthood centers.

In an email to LifeNews.com with the details, OR officials tell LifeNews.com that the patient also accuses Sella of misdiagnosing her pregnancy at 19 weeks, even though previous medical examinations placed her pregnancy at 23 weeks, beyond the legal limit for abortions in Kansas.

On Thursday, the woman had a temperature of nearly 104 degrees and she returned to Tiller's abortion business, where she says she was locked inside a room for nearly four hours. She called for abortion center staff to release her but says her pleas went unanswered.

She tells OR officials that workers at the abortion center told her to calm down after she went into hysterics and said other patients would be upset if she didn't stop crying. The abortion facility staff allegedly told her that they would not treat her if she didn't calm down.

The woman was also told that she would have to drive three hours away to Kansas City to complete the abortion and the woman asked Tiller to complete the abortion procedure.

According to OR, the patient "observed that she continued to feel movements in her womb. Her mother was present during the removal of the baby, and observed Tiller inserting a tube into the baby's skull and removing the brains, a procedure that is illegal if the baby was still alive."

Before Tiller's facility completed the abortion, the patient told OR she feared she would be killed while sedated. During the completion of the abortion, the woman suffered an asthma attack and cardiac arrest, but was revived.

Instead of calling an ambulance, OR tells LifeNews.com that Tiller drove the woman to Wesley Medical Center in his personal vehicle. She said Tiller had problems seeing while he was driving and an abortion center staff member had to direct him through traffic.

The patient was treated and discharged from the hospital on Saturday, September 27, 2008, even though she was still in pain and feeling sick from her ordeal, OR said.

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman talked about the incident.

"We have repeatedly begged the authorities in Kansas to hold Tiller accountable for the many women he had hurt just over the past few years," he said. "How many women must be maimed or killed before Tiller is brought to justice?"

"We say it again: Tiller is a menace and we demand that he be held accountable for his dangerous, if not criminal, actions. This time, the public should not take 'no' for an answer," he added.

Newman said the incident reminds him of the shoddy treatment of 19-year old Christin Gilbert, a mentally disabled Texas woman who died from untreated sepsis during a third-trimester abortion at Tiller's center in January 2005.


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Sources: LifeNews, Operation Rescue, Huffington Post, Day Life, Google Maps