A New York mother filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood and two Albany hospitals this summer for allegedly botching a first-trimester abortion and then abandoning her when she began suffering complications.
The lawsuit by Nakara Alston, 25, of Albany, is the latest in a long series of cases accusing the billion-dollar abortion chain of botched abortions and negligence. In 2014, for example, Planned Parenthood paid a $2 million settlement to the family of Tonya Reaves who died along with her unborn baby after an abortion in Illinois.
In the latest case, The Times Union reports Alston accused the Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood of botching her surgical abortion in May 2020 and then failing to provide follow-up care when she continued to bleed and later discovered she was still pregnant.
She said Planned Parenthood did not offer her a follow-up appointment or provide her with basic information about pregnancy and abortion.
Her attorney, Lewis B. Oliver, told the newspaper that the abortion facility, St. Peter’s Health Partners and Albany Medical Center all failed her when she went to them seeking care.
“Ms. Alston was bounced around from one medical provider to another, and none of the medical providers took responsibility for her condition for months,” Oliver said.
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As a result, Alston said she suffered damage to her reproductive organs and continues to receive blood transfusions every six months. She also gave birth prematurely to a baby girl, Sumeria Ln’Anna Nammu, who died an hour after she was born, according to the report.
In early 2020, Alston said she was living in a shelter for victims of domestic violence with her two daughters when she realized she was pregnant again. She said the shelter staff referred her to Planned Parenthood for an abortion.
At eight weeks of pregnancy, she had a surgical abortion at the Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood, and a physician’s assistant confirmed that the abortion was complete, according to the lawsuit. She said the abortion facility never offered her a follow-up appointment.
Over the next three weeks, Alston continued to bleed and feel pain. So, she scheduled an appointment with her OB-GYN at St. Peter’s Family Health Center; there, a pregnancy test confirmed that she still was pregnant, the lawsuit states.
Here’s more from the report:
Alston’s doctor allegedly instructed her to call Planned Parenthood. Alston called the clinic, but got a voicemail message, she said. St. Peter’s never performed an ultrasound or contacted Planned Parenthood directly to discuss the positive pregnancy test, according to the court filings.
A Planned Parenthood supervisor later returned Alston’s call and allegedly informed her that the abortion was successful and that it was common for pregnancy hormones to show up on a test up to a month after the procedure.
For the next several months, however, Alston said she continued to suffer bleeding, pain and dizziness and visited the emergency rooms at Albany Med and St. Peter’s several times in June and July, according to the lawsuit. She said she still wanted an abortion, but neither hospital offered her one.
“The only choice they gave me was Planned Parenthood, but I didn’t want to go back to Planned Parenthood, because they are the ones that messed it up,” she said.
The report continues:
She returned to St. Peter’s emergency department on July 30, then 22 weeks pregnant, after several days of heavy bleeding – to the point that blood would pool on her bedroom floor each morning. An ultrasound showed a fetal heartbeat but no amniotic fluid. Her water had broken.
Alston said she was informed by an ER physician and social worker at St. Peter’s that the hospital didn’t deliver babies that early. They also informed her, for the first time, that Albany Med could perform abortions and that procedures were allowed for any reason in New York up until 25 weeks of pregnancy, according to the court documents.
Alston said she agreed to the abortion and began the procedure Aug. 5 at Albany Med; however, she went into labor instead. She was 23-weeks pregnant, according to the report.
Near the end of labor, she said the doctors told her that her baby girl had died. At the time, Alston said she had lost a lot of blood and went in and out of consciousness. Her daughter, Sumeria, was born early Aug. 6, and she was placed briefly on her mother’s chest before being taken away, the suit alleges. Meanwhile, Alston received a blood transfusion, the lawsuit states.
Compounding her trauma and heartbreak, Alston’s lawyer said she learned only this year through her medical records that her daughter had lived for about an hour outside the womb, according to the newspaper.
“I was hurt,” Alston said. “If I knew she was alive for a little bit of time, I would have spent time holding her until she passed.”
Her case is just one of many allegations of botched abortions and other negligence by Planned Parenthood, which does more abortions than any other group in the U.S. LifeNews has reported about numerous lawsuits and other allegations of shoddy care against the abortion chain in the past decade, including several cases where women died.
