ARTICLES
January 2006 ARTICLES
Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Callous Indifference
State Honors Doctor Implicated in Botched Abortion
BY MARIA KENNEDY
In 2003, the University of California regents published a training manual for abortion providers. The manual, Early Abortion Training Workbook, lists as its consultants a virtual Who's Who of Planned Parenthood abortionists. Among them is Mark Maltzer, MD, who also served as a consultant for the manual. Maltzer, who owns the Pregnancy Consultation Center in Sacramento, is what sidewalk counselors call "an abortion circuit rider." He is also what they would call a "butcher." The year before the manual was published, Maltzer performed an abortion that led to the death of a young Latina mother in East Los Angeles.
On February 27, 2002, Diana Lopez went to a Planned Parenthood clinic in East Los Angeles for a second-tri mester abortion. Medical records obtained from a May 21, 2003 investigation by the state department of health services show that Maltzer was the medical director for the clinic at the time. The clinic was cited for numerous violations, which were discovered at the time of Lopez's death. These violations include the failure by the clinic to contact the state within 24 hours of Lopez's death; it waited six days before it notified the state. The citing also included the inappropriate use of misoprostal, which was given to Lopez the day before in order to open her cervix. Standard medical procedures call for the administration of the drug a few hours before an abortion. The report also found that the clinic did not keep proper medical records on Lopez; Maltzer himself did not date some of the documents he signed off on, according to the state's statement of deficiencies. The report noted that the anemic Lopez's hemoglobin count was below ten, which made her a risky candidate for a second-trimester abortion.
In 2003, Lopez's husband and two toddler sons sued Maltzer and the East Los Angeles Planned Parenthood for wrongful death. The lawsuit alleged that "Maltzer worked so quickly, recklessly and negligently pulling out sharp body parts of Diana Lopez's 19-20 week unborn infant that severe irreparable damage was done to the cervix causing massive, immediate hemorrhage from a traumatic cervical perforation that caused the death of Diana Lopez." The coroner's report, issued after the Lopez autopsy, verified what the lawsuit alleged and said she "died from a massive hemorrhage due to the lacerations to her cervix."
The University of California abortion manual is used as the framework for the continuing medical education credit, which is required for practicing physicians to retain their licenses. The manual states that among the objects of the credit is ensuring that physicians understand key elements of informed-consent counseling. Yet the 2003 report issued by the state department of health services found that Maltzer did not obtain Lopez's informed consent but relied on a "reproductive health specialist" to obtain it. According to state requirements, the abortionist must obtain the informed consent.
Another section of the manual urges abortionists to put the patient at ease by asking questions on how she feels about undergoing an abortion -- a suggestion that would imply spending time with the patient. The lawsuit filed against Maltzer states that he spent six minutes performing a second-trimester abortion on Lopez, which may suggest that he spent very little time, if any, counseling her. The lawsuit alleges that in his rush to perform the abortion, he mangled her cervix, causing the severe hemorrhag ing. According to the state report, the nurse practitioner, who examined Lopez before the abortion, noted that her cervical opening was unusually small. Yet in spite of the fact that in 2001 Planned Parenthood had changed its policy on the number of laminaria that should be used to open the cervix before an abortion, Maltzer allegedly did not heed these guidelines, but inserted too many laminaria for her small cervix. (The manual on which Maltzer consulted discusses how to dilate the cervix.)
The California Medical Board investigated the Lopez incident to determine whether or not to revoke Maltzer's license. Ultimately it decided not to revoke it.
Maltzer lectures at the University of California, Davis medical school, which requires that all medical students take a course which examines aspects of medical care. In October of this year, Dr. Fraizer Stevenson, the course instructor, featured Maltzer in the overview of abortion procedures. The Davis school of medicine website lists Maltzer as part of its volunteer faculty program.
In his lecture, Maltzer noted how abortions are no longer performed in hospitals. "Many, many years ago, prior to Roe [v. Wade], most legal abortions were done in hospitals," he said. "Subse quent to Roe v. Wade, abortions where done in hospitals, doctors' offices, and abortion clinics. Today the provision of abortion is in abortion clinics, which is both good and bad. It's bad because you have to bring someone such as myself who is kind of quasi- university, quasi-private to tell you [the students] about abortion, because the expertise involving abortion medicine is no longer found in universities; it's primarily outside the universities." Maltzer went on to tell his students that performing abortions in clinics "is good in that the safety of abortions is high in clinics that specialize in abortion, because the expertise in clinics is high, by both the surgeon and staff is extremely high. So it happens that abortions done in clinics are safer done in clinics that specialize in abortion than they are when performed in hospitals or doctors' offices."
In his lecture Maltzer admits it is difficult to bring abortionists on campus to teach students. "It's only in the last year that Dr. Stevenson has arranged the ability for me to talk about abortion."
The lawsuit against Maltzer and Planned Parenthood Planned Parent hood was settled February 17, 2005, according to Jack Schuler, the lawyer representing the Lopez family. While saying he was not at liberty to discuss the settlement at length because of a confidentiality clause in the settlement, he did say that "it settled for a substantial amount." The lawsuit paints a gruesome picture of an abortionist who showed, it says, "callous indifference towards his patient who was near total exsanguinations. He failed to accompany Diana Lopez in the ambulance, failed to follow the patient to the emergency room at the USC/LAC Woman's hospital and failed to personally consult with the surgical team that attempted to revive Diana Lopez. Mark Maltzer, M.D. failed to contact or console the family of Diana Lopez at or near the time of her death. Mark Maltzer, M.D. failed to put his name on the transform form as required by the California Medical Board and the name of another physician, Mary Gatter, M.D. was substituted for his name."
When the Medical Board investigated the death of Lopez, Maltzer insisted that it was not he who did the abortion even though his name appears as the surgeon of record and he signs his name to the surgical and post-surgical Notes. Maltzer claimed that Dr. Mary Gatter, the medical director of Planned Parenthood in Los Angeles, did the abortion. Gatter is not known to be doing abortion surgeries, just administrative work.
Dr. Fraizer Stevenson had not returned repeated phone calls about this story as of press time.