A New York abortionist has been convicted of murder.
He faces up to 25 years in prison after performing an abortion that killed a 33-year-old Honduran immigrant woman.
Dr. David Benjamin performed the abortion on Guadalupe Negron who was five months pregnant at the time. Failing to examine Negron to determine gestation, Benjamin perforated the woman’s uterus and left her unattended while he performed another abortion.
Negron haemorrhaged, went into shock and then cardiac arrest. An hour after the procedure, Dr. Benjamin called an ambulance. Then he mistakenly inserted a breathing tube into her stomach instead of her trachea. Negron was dead before she reached the hospital.
Brad Leventhal, Benjamin’s attorney argued that, “This is a malpractice case…The last thing this doctor wanted to do was injure a patient or cause the death of a patient.” He further argued that, “He made a miscalculation of the gestation of the fetus and complications ensued. He called for emergency help; he tried everything that he could do to save this patient’s life.
Queen’s District Attorney Richard Brown disagreed, saying that Benjamin’s “depraved indifference to human life” warrants the criminal charges. New York’s law requires referral of advanced pregnancies to hospitals. Not only did Benjamin defy this law and perform the abortion, he did so while his license was under suspension. Bejamin’s medical license had been revoked by the state health department for “gross incompetence and negligence” for five cases in which he had perforated the uteruses of other patients. He was appealing that ruling when he performed the deadly abortion on Negron in 1993.
