National and local pro-life advocates will host a press conference and prayer service Tuesday for an Ohio woman who died a day after undergoing an abortion at Preterm clinic in Cleveland.
Operation Rescue reports that Tia Parks, the 26-year-old mother of a four-year-old daughter, entered Preterm on June 7 for an abortion. She was dead the next day.
According to an autopsy report recently obtained by Operation Rescue, Parks had a rare condition known as heterotopic gestation that went undiagnosed by Preterm staff.
“The postmortem diagnosis of a heterotopic gestation means that Parks carried two pregnancies – fraternal twins – one of which was implanted inside the uterus, and one that implanted in her left fallopian tube,” the pro-life organization explains. Parks died from internal hemorrhaging caused by a ruptured left fallopian tube that “occurred either during the abortion of the baby in her womb—possibly due to the force of the suction procedure—or immediately after.”
According the autopsy, Parks weighed 305 pounds, which put her at increased risk of complications from an abortion, and had an enlarged heart that the autopsy described as “globoid and floppy in configuration.” Operation Rescue notes that the average female heart weighs 285 grams, but Parks’ heart weighed 520 grams.
The day after her abortion, she was rushed to Cleveland Clinic where she was diagnosed with free fluids in the abdomen. She suffered cardiac arrest and died that evening, June 8, leaving her daughter behind.
Her official cause of death was hemoperitoneum, meaning there was blood in her abdominal cavity.
“It was reckless for Preterm to conduct Parks’ abortion in their outpatient clinic – especially since they are so prone to inflicting life-threatening injuries on women during abortions. We have documented over two dozen medical emergencies there, and we know that is just a fraction of women who have been hospitalized after abortions at that facility,” said Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue.
“Ms. Parks had several health issues that made her a high risk patient who should have been referred for proper medical care in a hospital setting where her tubal pregnancy may have been detected. That may have spared her life and the life of her baby in the womb,” he added.
In March 2014, 22-year-old Lakisha Wilson died from hemorrhaging after undergoing a second-trimester abortion at Preterm. Staff at the abortion facility called for an ambulance, but Wilson was dead by the time it arrived. The abortionist who performed the operation, Lisa Perriera, was promoted and later received an award from the Physicians for Reproductive Choice.
As The Ohio Star reported, a 911 call from December revealed that a woman who was “bleeding heavy” was left outside Preterm because the workers wanted to go home for the day.
“They just left me bleeding like this,” the woman said in the recording. She explained that she was discharged because “everybody was just ready to go.”
In April, Preterm had to place two 911 calls for patients who were hemorrhaging after receiving an abortion. As early as Saturday, the clinic had to send another woman to the hospital.
In response, Citizens for Community Values, Cleveland Right to Life, and a few local pastors are holding a press conference followed by a prayer service Tuesday to “mourn the untimely death of 26-year-old black mother Tia Parks.
“This event will highlight Preterm’s continuing pattern of substandard medical assistance and resulting medical emergencies, as well as inform the public why the facility must cease operation and close its doors for good,” said a press release.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News, The Ohio Star, and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Tia A Parks” by Tia A Parks.
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