prayers and strength for this family..happy the LA Times covered it
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 21, 2007
Riverside, CA (LifeNews.com) -- The mother of a woman who died after an abortion at a Planned Parenthood in this city east of Los Angles has filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the abortion business. The lawsuit contends that Planned Parenthood officials gave 21 year-old Edrica Goode
poor medical care prior to the abortion that claimed her life.
Goode went to the Planned Parenthood abortion center on January 31 pregnant and with a vaginal infection.
Despite the infection, the lawsuit says staff at the abortion center inserted cervical dilators to prepare her for a second-trimester abortion.
The lawsuit says the dilators, which consist mostly of seaweed, caused the spread of the infection throughout her body, leading to her death.
The abortion eventually claimed Goode's life on February 14 after she was treated at a local hospital, which is also named in the lawsuit.
Aletheia Meloncon, Goode's mother, talked with the Los Angles Times about her daughter's death. She filed the lawsuit in Riverside County Superior Court on Tuesday.
"My daughter made a choice, but she didn't choose to die," Meloncon said. "A lost dog gets more attention than my daughter did. This has really torn at my family."
Jack Schuler, Meloncon's attorney, agreed and said, "If it wasn't for the negligent medical care that Edrica Goode received, she would be alive today."
After the abortion, Goode never removed the dilators and Planned Parenthood claims to have sent two letters to her, but Meloncon told the Times they never came. She said the abortion facility should have done more to contact her daughter.
Goode wound up going to Riverside County Regional Medical Center where she eventually had a miscarriage and died the next day.
Meloncon was unaware of the abortion and described her daughter as having become "mentally unstable" after it was done. She said that had she known about the abortion before the laminaria problems developed she would have gotten medical attention for Goode sooner.
Vince Hall, director of communications for Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside counties, refused to comment on the lawsuit to the Times and claimed that the "health and safety of our patients is our highest priority."
However, Goode is the third woman to die at Planned Parenthood abortion centers in the last four years.
The first was Holly Patterson, an 18 year-old from Livermore who died after she received a lethal bacterial infection after using the abortion drug she obtained at Planned Parenthood Golden Gate. Diana Lopez, 25-year-old Huntington Park woman, bled to death after an abortion she had punctured her cervix.
Pro-life groups were disappointed by the news and Operation Rescue President Troy Newman told LifeNews.com, that abortion advocates "can pretend that abortion is safe, but the mounting body count says otherwise, and of course abortion is always fatal for the child."
"We pray that the Riverside Planned Parenthood will close and those responsible for the tragic death of Edrica Goode will be required to pay the full penalty under the law," he said.
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