The Rivard family knows first hand that abortion isn’t the easy safe procedure it’s supposed to be. They still mourn for their daughter who died tragically as a result of complications arising from an abortion last year.
Through an interpreter, Karine Rivard’s father, Jean-Claude, says he is seeking justice from the Sherbrooke hospital where his 18-year-old daughter died July 25, 1992.
They have launched a medical malpractice suit for $205,000 to get some relief for the loss of Karine.
Pro-life groups have mobilized to support the family in its quest to get some justice. The Rivards are now solidly “pro-vie.”
The case has already been in the courts in January and the lawyers are to appear again in March when the doctors will be examined, Rivard says.
He says he had no idea his daughter Karine was going for the abortion and was quoted in the French-language Sherbrooke Tribune as saying he would have done anything to help her.
“If only we had known that she had wanted an abortion, we would have helped,” he said, “We weren’t there to judge her.”
Rivard maintains in the Sherbrooke newspaper that his daughter changed her mind before the abortion and was crying and telling the medical staff she didn’t want to go through with it. She developed breathing problems after the 10-minute abortion. She stopped breathing and efforts to revive her failed. She went into cardiac arrest and was transferred to the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke (CHUS) and she died five days later.
The family is claiming
$150,000 for Karine’s son Corey, who was six months old when his mother died. They are claiming $25,000 each and $5,000 for the funeral.
Pro-life groups have backed the family and are helping to fundraise to pay the lawyers’ fees. Gitane Maltais, of Secours et vie, says the group considers the case important because it highlights the dangers inherent in abortion.
