Woman files suit in connection with botched abortion

Medical Malpractice > Hospital Accident

March 13, 2007

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Boston, MA - A doctor at Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts has been named in a lawsuit filed by a woman who received treatment at the center. The lawsuit claims that the doctor botched her abortion in April 2004 and that she did not know she was still pregnant until about six weeks before her daughter was born later that year.

Jennifer Raper, 45, of Charlestown, is seeking damages from Planned Parenthood, the doctor who performed the abortion at the Boston clinic and another physician who allegedly failed to detect the pregnancy in July 2004. She is also asking for compensation for the costs she has accumulated from raising her 2-year-old daughter.

Raper was not available for comment regarding what is referred to as a wrongful birth suit. Raper has filed her suit in a Suffolk Superior Court, but the complaint must still go through a screening by a special panel before it can proceed to trial.

A spokesperson from Planned Parenthood refused to make a statement regarding the case.

Raper said in the three-page medical malpractice lawsuit that she found out she was pregnant in March 2004 and decided to have an abortion for financial reasons.

She went in to Planned Parenthood on April 9, 2004 and the procedure was performed by Dr. Allison Bryant, a physician working for Planned Parenthood. Raper claims that Bryant performed the operation incorrectly and she was still pregnant afterwards.

Following the procedure, Bryant instructed Raper to see her primary care physician.

About three months later, Raper went to Dr. Benjamin Eleonu of Boston Medical Center. After performing a pelvic exam, Eleonu stated that her uterus was completely normal despite the fact that at that time she was 20 weeks pregnant.

Raper did not determine that she was still pregnant until she went to the New England Medical Center emergency room for treatment of pelvic pain on Sept. 26. Her daughter was born later that year on December 7th

The lawsuit claims that Planned Parenthood and Bryant were negligent for failing to end her pregnancy and that Eleonu was negligent for failing to determine she was still pregnant.

Neither doctor has issued a formal statement regarding the lawsuit.

This is not the first wrongful birth suit that has been filed in the state of Massachusetts.

More than 20 years ago, a medical malpractice lawyer, Andrew Meyer, said he represented a woman who won an award of several hundred thousand dollars after she gave birth to her 11th child because a doctor had botched a procedure to sterilize her through tubal ligation.

In 1997, Deborah Gaines sued Preterm Health Services in Brookline, where she had been present during a shooting rampage by John Salvi III from which she escaped. Gaines apparently had been too traumatized to go back for the abortion and accused the clinic of providing inadequate security.

Gaines gave birth to her fourth child seven months later. Her particular case was settled.

A ruling in 1990 made by the State Supreme Judicial Court allowed parents to sue physicians for child-raising expenses, but it limited the claims to cases in which children require extraordinary expenses because of medical problems.

According to Raper’s lawsuit, there is not any indication that her daughter suffers from any medical conditions.

Raper's complaint will have to be screened by a tribunal consisting of a judge, a lawyer and a doctor to determine whether it has enough merit to go to trial.

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