A doctor accused of botching a woman’s abortion has been charged with manslaughter in her death, which came hours after she left his New York City office seeming disoriented, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Dr. Robert Rho pleaded not guilty in the 30-year-old woman’s death. His lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, called the death tragic, but not criminal.
“This is a doctor who has been performing abortions safely and carefully for 23 years,” Lichtman said.
But Queens District Attorney Robert Brown said Rho recklessly caused his patient’s death by puncturing the wall of her uterus and slicing through an artery, and then by not giving her appropriate medical care. Bleeding profusely after the July 9 procedure at his office in Queens, she needed another procedure and then was allowed to leave after it was done, despite having collapsed and seeming confused, prosecutors said.
While being driven to her sister’s Bronx home, the woman fell off the back seat and became unresponsive, prosecutors said. A hospital gave her about six pints of blood to try to treat her vaginal bleeding, but she died that night.
Now free on $400,000 bond, Rho, 52, is an obstetrician and cosmetic surgeon. The phone at his office, Liberty Women Healthcare Queens, was out of service Tuesday.
Deaths from abortion complications are rare, according to federal statistics. Two women died of such complications amid more than 730,000 abortions performed nationwide in 2011, the last year for which federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data are available. (California, Maryland, and New Hampshire didn’t provide data.) A 2015 study of CDC data from 1998 to 2010 found an average of about 1.2 million abortions and 8 maternal deaths per year.
Over 600 women die each year in the United States from pregnancy or delivery complications, according to the CDC.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Using abortion as a method of birth control is never a good idea. She wanted to kill her baby and now she, herself is gone. My thoughts and prayers are with the family.
The shedding of Innocent BLOOD pollutes the land and “REQUIRES” payment! Deut 19:10/Num 35:33 That Innocent BLOOD that is shed defiles the land and that land can NOT be cleansed but by the blood of him that shed it! Don’t get mad at me, I didn’t write this and these are NOT my words! these are the words of GOD Almighty!
23 years of killing babys ,money overrides morals in this case.
Well now just to be clear he is only 1/3 responsible the other 2/3 is on the patient and the law allowing it.
Well said !!
It is my opinion. when a woman has an abortion her uterus should be removed.. This would prevent further pregnancies and also be less dangerous for the woman… In real life I am against abortion, but that doesn’t stop these women from getting them.. Just think of all the babies being in Heaven. That’s where they are………. . It is enough to boggle the mind, but it’s true.. These babies were innocent human beings.. Regardless of them being killed and their parts cut up and sold.. Their spirit and souls went directly to Heaven… Killary wants this to continue… Do you?
I should add GOD PLEASE HAVE MERCY ON US AS A NATION and give us a president that is against the killing of the innocent…
The doctor seems to be good at killing people but not protecting people. In the 1990s Bill Clinton said he wanted abortions to be safe, legal and rare. To the liberals that means abortions are to remain legal. If they are safe and/or rare that is just a welcome coincidence.
Abortion of a healthy child from a healthy mother is murder,and should be dealt with accordingly.