Board Clears Abortion Doctor
Panel backs finding that woman’s treatment within ‘standard of care’
SANTA FE — The New Mexico Medical Board exonerated on Thursday a high-profile abortion doctor who had been accused of gross negligence involving a late-term abortion at a private Albuquerque clinic.
The unanimous deci - sion of five board members participating, with three recused, c losed out a yearlong investigation into allegat ions fi rst raised by local and national anti-abortion advocates who filed the complaint against Dr. Shelly Sella.
Sella works at Southwestern Women’s Options clinic in Albuquerque, one of four clinics in the country that provide third trimester abortions.
“It’s an affirmation of the excellent care that Dr. Sella and Southwestern Women’s Options clinic provide,” said her attorney Molly SchmidtNowara. “The medical board did the right thing. The system worked.”
In written arguments, board
prosecutor Daniel Rubin contended Sella breached the standard of care in how she gave the woman medication designed to kill the fetus. He also argued the multi-day abortion process should have been performed at a hospital, not an outpatient clinic.
But the board, without elaboration, accepted the findings of a hearing officer who determined Sella’s treatment of a New York woman who had a uterine rupture during an abortion was within “the established standard of care governing third trimester abortion procedures in general and as applied to post cesarean third trimester abortion procedures.”
Sella’s attorneys maintained the rupture was a known risk because of the woman’s prior C-section.
Hearing off icer David Thomson, in an 18-page opinion, also cleared Southwestern Women’s Options clinic of any negligence.
Thomson went on to say that testimony elicited in a two-day hearing in November showed the clinic “is a suitable facility for a third trimester abortion under these circumstances. It has adequate staff, adequate facilities and is closely adjacent to emergency services.”
Abortion history
Sella began practicing in New Mexico in 2010, a year after prominent abortion doctor George Tiller was gunned down by an anti-abortion fanatic at a Witchita, Kan., church. She had worked with Tiller for nine years prior to his death and is featured in a newly released documentary, “After Tiller,” that was recently screened at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.
On Thursday, the board’s closed-door deliberations prior to the vote took nearly an hour. Two private armed security guards stood by outside the meeting room. Neither Sella nor her attorneys were present.
The 26-year-old patient traveled to New Mexico with her husband and mother for the abortion after learning her 35-week fetus appeared to have “severe brain abnormalities.”
The prosecution, which had to prove “willful or wanton conduct” on Sella’s part, relied on the testimony of an expert witness from Houston.
Dr. Gerald Bullock concluded in one report that, “A physician and clinic that holds itself out to be an international referral center for abortion must provide at least a minimum standard of care. That was not done in the care of (name redacted). She is very lucky to have survived this medical care.”
Bullock maintained the standards for obstetrics should have applied in the abortion case, but the hearing officer disagreed, noting there was a difference between a live birth and the procedure involving the intentional death of a fetus.
Sella’s attorneys contended Bullock was biased and anti-abortion.
In his report, Bullock said his medical opinion wasn’t tainted by his personal views. “Although I find this practice appalling on a moral basis, apparently this is a legal procedure in New Mexico.”
Sella, who testified at the November hearing that she has performed 10,000 abortions, is one of a handful of physicians in the U.S. who perform third trimester abortions.
Tara Shaver, spokeswoman for Project Defending Life in Albuquerque, said her group was “thankful for the process to be able to file complaints.”
But she said “it was clear ... from the very beginning, from the initial complaints that I filed (with the board) we just sensed a strong pro-abortion bias on the medical board’s part.”
She added that the board’s reasoning on the standard of care issue shows “abortionists do inevitably make up their own rules. I really just believe women deserve better.”
Shaver’s group is affiliated with the national anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.
Laura Schauer Ives, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New Mexico, released a statement on Thursday supporting the board decision.
“When an abortion clinic calls 911, Operation Rescue files a complaint with the state medical board in an attempt to bully and harass doctors. It’s a shame that outof-state extremists feel that they can abuse and politicize our system of medical oversight to satisfy their political agendas.”