Woman Says Practitioner Held Hand Over Her Mouth as He Forced Abortion

Woman Says Practitioner Held Hand Over Her Mouth as He Forced Abortion
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 4, 2010



Flint, MI (LifeNews.com) -- A Michigan woman who says she was victimized by a forced abortion is speaking out more about her ordeal and offering a more graphic, detailed explanation. She says she had a hand forced over her mouth as she was held down and an abortion done on her as she tried to hold her legs together.

Caitlin Bruce is 20 and she has filed a lawsuit against abortion practitioner Alberto Hodari, who has a long history of killing and injuring patients and also faces other forced abortion accusations.

Bruce had the abortion in April 2008 at Hodari's Feminine Health Care Clinic in Flint, Michigan. But she told ABC News she changed her mind at the very last second but was pinned down and had her mouth closed as she tried to protest.

A high school dropout trying to make a life for herself, Bruce is the classic case of a minority girl impregnated by a much-older boyfriend -- and her father persuaded her to have the abortion.

"I was really confused, asking everybody else what I should do. Everybody told me, 'You were too young,'" she told ABC. "What I really wanted to hear was, 'We'll help you out.'"

On the table for the abortion, Bruce felt the first instrument go inside her and she asked Hodari to stop, but he and his assistants held her down.

"He had a real tight grip over my mouth, but I was screaming .. and trying to pull my legs together," she said.

She said Hodari appeared to give up and told her she could go home and as soon as she relaxed, Bruce tells ABC News Hodari completed the abortion.

"And that's when I felt the worst pain in my stomach," she said. "It really felt like he was ripping everything in me out, that's how painful it was."

She said Hodari never said another word to her and she lay by herself on the table horrified.

"This is a question about choice. Who makes the decision here? He told her she could back out any time," Bruce's attorney Tom Pabst told ABC News. "Who does he think he is?"

Hodari's lawyer Steve Weiss called the lawsuit "baseless" and has already said she changed her mind too late for Hodari to go back on the abortion.

Hodari faces a revised civil lawsuit from Bruce. She filed a lawsuit previously, but her attorney submitted new paperwork last week at the Genesee County Circuit Court.

In a prior interview with ConnectMichigan, Bruce said, "He was inserting the speculum, and I told him I'm nervous. I just told him stop please. I'm really nervous and I don't want to do this anymore.”

Hodari responded to the news service, saying “When she said stop, it was too late… I told her I would stop, but when I take my instrument there was blood and tissue on it from pregnancy, so I couldn't stop.”

However, obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Mona Hardas told the Michigan news outlet that Hodari handled the situation poorly. She said Hodari could have taken Bruce to a local hospital for a second opinion rather than forcing her to have the abortion.

“Even if someone has signed a consent form, if someone wants you to stop you have to stop. I am shocked. I can't believe this is still happening in this day and age," she said.

Hodari responded to those comments, defending his record as an abortion practitioner.

“I am there because I want to help woman have safe abortions. Look at my records. I have done more abortions and longer than any doctor in Michigan," he said.

However, Hodari has also killed women in failed abortions and, last June, he was fined $10,000 by a state board in connection with a woman's botched abortion death.

http://www.lifenews.com/state5157.html