Abortion Drug Left 16-Year-Old Black Girl ‘Sick, Sore, Lame and Disabled’: Lawsuit

A black teenager says the side effects of the abortion drug mifepristone left her permanently “sick, sore, lame and disabled” and — since abortion staffers did not realize her child survived — caused her baby to be born with lifelong, “profound birth defects.” The case shakes the foundations of the abortion debate in America, as the number of abortions using mifepristone skyrocket, and abortion advocates partner with Democratic governors to mail abortion drugs to pro-life states nationwide.

A 16-year-old black girl (whose name we’re withholding) experienced two abortions at the Choices Women’s Medical Center in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens (formerly the Flushing Women’s Center) within less than a year, according to a host of medical and legal documents obtained by The Washington Stand. The first time she became pregnant was at the age of 15, two years younger than the state’s age of consent, from her 20-year-old boyfriend and underwent a dismemberment abortion (dilation and evacuation) at 19 weeks on December 5, 2017. There is no paperwork to indicate the facility contacted authorities over the age difference.

By September 2018, the teenager was pregnant again from the same man. “He is 21 y/o,” the abortion facility noted in internal paperwork obtained by The Washington Stand, “and she was not pressured or forced to have sex.” The paperwork notes that the teen told abortion staffers “her parents were disappointed when they found out she was pregnant and did not approve of her relationship.” The paperwork also noted the vulnerable minor “smokes marijuana.”

The teen underwent a chemical abortion at eight weeks, receiving mifepristone from abortionist Angele Meikle and taking the abortion pill “under direct supervision” of Choices staffers in October 2018. The teenager swore in court documents that she “was also given drugs to take at home to complete” the two-drug chemical abortion, which combined mifepristone and misoprostol. “I took the drugs that staff at Choice Women’s Medical Center, Inc. gave me to take home according to the instructions that they gave me,“ she swore. She returned for a follow-up visit in November 2018, where she says abortion staffers falsely told her she tested positive for HIV/AIDS, but took no blood test to assure she had aborted her child.

Three months later — on February 2, 2019 — she realized her child had survived the abortion pill. In April 2019, she gave birth to a baby with “profound birth defects,” according to legal documents suing the facility and several abortionists. The child, referred to only as “P.V.” was born with hydrocephalus (colloquially called “water on the brain”), as well as “severe brain injuries, arthrogryposis-like disorder, congenital deformities of upper and lower extremities, and other serious injuries and conditions.“ The injuries caused the mother “to incur extraordinary medical and hospital expenses.”

“Had I known of the risk that the termination of my pregnancy may not be successful and the risk that my baby P.V. could be born alive with severe birth defects after I took the chemical abortion drugs the defendants gave me, I would not have undergone the chemical medical abortion,” the teen swore in a court document reviewed by TWS.

Taking the abortion drug mifepristone left the single, teenage mother “sick, sore, lame and disabled,” and after taking the drug, the teen “sustained severe and grievous injuries to head, body and limbs … some of which will be permanent in nature,” according to her legal brief. 

An OB/GYN in Connecticut who reviewed her full medical record attested in the case that Choices personnel “deviated from good and accepted medical practices in failing … to ensure the [abortion] was complete.” The abortion facility “fail[ed] to adequately and fully inform” the teen and her family about “the risks, benefits, hazards and alternatives of the … drugs” they “administered, [and] is the proximate cause of the injuries” she suffered, as well.

“The revictimization of this poor 16-year-old by the abortion industry is the norm, not the exception,” Rev. Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare, a New York-based coalition of pregnancy resource centers, told The Washington Stand. Abortionists regularly fail to report suspected sexual abuse, often telling the potential victim they do not want to know the details, which would make them mandatory reporters. “The medical community is the knot at the end of the rope for sexually abused girls,” Harden told TWS. “Not only does the abortion industry harm women and destroy the child, it protects the abuser while the industry itself is sheltered by pro-abortion political extremists like New York Governor Kathy Hochul.”

Hochul, a Democrat, announced in April that New York will begin stockpiling abortion drugs and signed a bill granting the abortion industry immunity for mailing mifepristone to pro-life states that make the drug illegal. Abortionists affiliated with the group AidAccess have already mailed 3,500 abortion pills to pro-life states in the last month and plan to take part in 42,000 chemical abortions in life-respecting states in the next year.

Abortion drugs already account for at least 52% of all abortions, although the two-drug abortion cocktail produces four times the level of harmful side effects for women than surgical abortions. Between 2000 and 2021, the FDA documented 4,207 adverse events from mifepristone use — including 26 deaths, 1,045 hospitalizations, 603 events requiring a blood transfusion, and 413 infections. That likely understates the figures, because in 2016, the Obama-Biden administration required only deaths caused by chemical abortion to be reported to the FDA’s Adverse Events Reporting System (FAERS).

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the abortion industry and its political allies have turned to mifepristone. Several national pharmacy chains have agreed to sell the abortion drug to female customers. And a coalition of congressional Democrats, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), wrote a letter to Walmart, Kroger, Costco, Safeway and Health Mart on June 14 calling their refusal to sell abortion pills “unacceptable.”

“Abortion industry abuse is exacerbated by chemical abortion, which in states like New York, can be easily accessed by sex traffickers and rapists to cover up their crimes,” Harden told TWS. “The unethical deregulation of chemical abortion by the Biden administration’s FDA and blue states — like the one New York Governor Hochul recently implemented, shielding abortion quacks from liability — heinously upend the role of government to protect all people equally, especially vulnerable women and children.”

Instead of shielding abortionists from legal consequences, governors should conduct a full-scale audit of abortion facilities to determine whether they are facilitating statutory rape or human trafficking, and whether they are injuring the mothers who come to them for aid, says Harden.

“The audit needs to include 1) how many under-aged abortions were perpetrated in their states, 2) the age of the man who impregnated the girl, 3) how many of those were rape victims, 4) how many gave consent to abortion, 5) how many were underdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, and coerced, 6) how many were transported across U.S. border or state lines in order to cover up a sex crime in violation of the Mann Act, 7) how many chemical abortions were completed in emergency rooms,” Harden concluded.

The teenage mother’s abortion malpractice lawsuit remains active in New York courts as of this writing.