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The objective of an abortion is to produce a death, but it's not supposed to be the mother who dies, as happened in the case of Diamond Williams.
The death of the 18-year-old two years ago remains under investigation by her family, who are awaiting critically important paperwork.
Operation Rescue, a prominent pro-life organization that once bought a building used by an abortion clinic to shut down the business, says no one should deny the case is tragic.
"Whether a person is pro-life or pro-choice, no one should think it's okay for an abortionist to conduct a surgical abortion in an ill-equipped abortion facility on a woman whose risk factors contraindicate outpatient surgery," said Operation Rescue's Cheryl Sullenger in a report about the case.
"No one should think it’s okay for an abortion facility to fail to follow up with a woman suffering complications from an abortion.
"And no one should think it’s okay for an abortion clinic attorney fail to disclose a conflict of interest then to delay the release of complete documents to a grieving family member."
Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said there are still many questions surrounding Williams' death.
"Her family continues to suffer from her loss to this day, and they deserve answers as to why so much seemed to go wrong starting with the abortion facility and its apparent neglect," he said. "Hopefully, answers can be found along with justice, so this traumatized family can finally begin to heal."
It happened in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Williams went to the Carolina Center for Women, later called A Women's Choice of Charlotte, for a scheduled abortion.
At 18, she was 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 300 pounds, and was a high-risk patient.
She suffered from diabetes mellitus, a metabolic disorder.
"Because of her medical issues, the clinic's staff should have turned her away. Accepting her as a patient proved to be a fatal mistake," Sullenger said.
She checked in first thing in the morning and was escorted out the door to where her mother was waiting only after staff had started shutting off lights and closing down for the day.
Her mother, Shakira, called the clinic's after-hours help line when her daughter had severe pain. Don't worry, she was told.
Still with pain a day later, Shakira made another call and was promised a return contact, which never came.
It wasn't long before Shakira heard a scream.
"I ran to find Diamond lying face down unable to speak and foaming at the mouth," she told OR. "We called 911 and the operator said from what I was explaining, my daughter may have just suffered a seizure."
Family members were hysterical when a fire unit arrived, and apparently perceiving the reaction as aggression, responders closed the other children into a bedroom.
"It is unclear what steps the emergency responders actually took to save Diamond, but for Shakira, it seemed like they weren't doing much, and she wondered why they weren't working harder to help her daughter."
Eventually, paramedics rolled her onto a body bag and dragged her out the patio door, taking her to Novant Health Presbyterian Center.
Again, Shakira was in a waiting room.
When she was allowed to see Diamond, she said her daughter was "bleeding from everywhere."
Diamond was pronounced dead four days after the abortion.
It took more than a year, after hiring a lawyer, for Shakira to get some of the documentation from her daughter's death. But even then it was incomplete.
One thing was significant: No cause of death was listed.
But the autopsy found "retained products of dissection," an incomplete abortion.
Shakira's attorney abruptly told her he was out of the picture, and she found out he had been representing the abortion clinic in another case.
Shakira now is working even to find out the name of the abortionist and other information from the medical records.
"Now, over two years after Diamond’s passing, Shakira has finally found the strength to fight to right wrongs done to her daughter. Although the process has been very difficult, she wants people to know what happened to Diamond," OR said.
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