DETROIT, March 14, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Lynn Mills has a simple question for the staff of Summit Women's Center in Detroit: How could you hire an abortionist who killed a patient?
In January 2008, a 26-year-old woman died during a botched abortion performed by Reginald Sharpe. According to the civil complaint, Sharpe “cut a uterine blood vessel [and] lacerated her intestines, and liver” during a botched abortion. She died eight days later.
After Sharpe closed down his two abortion facilities in the Detroit area, he moved on to Summit. Mills confronted one of the workers at Sharpe's new office with a copy of the death certificate.
“That doesn't have anything to do with Sharpe,” said the woman. “If he'd killed somebody, he'd be in jail.”
“It's right here,” said Mills, holding up the death certificate. “And you hired him.”
The death certificate, which LifeSiteNews has obtained, states the cause of death is “uterine perforation during medical procedure.”
“It does not matter,” the worker insisted vigorously. “One of the complications in any surgery you have is to die.”
Mills, the founder of Pro-Life Detroit, told LifeSiteNews.com she is passionate about the issue because she had seen how terribly the young woman suffered.
She said the fact that Sharpe damaged the woman's liver during an abortion seemed exceptional. Mills stated that the woman had seizures, heart attacks, and went into a coma for eight days.
Mills said, “She was let's say a 140-150 lb. girl. She bloated up to 280 lbs. when she died.”
“I've seen the pictures of her in the hospital,” she stated. “What he did to her was criminal.”
Mills said, “I'm not going to rest until he's in jail or he loses his license.”
She said Sharpe did not tell emergency medical personnel about the lacerations, depriving the emergency room of precious time to save her life.
The allegation parallels the case of Tonya Reaves, who died after Planned Parenthood reportedly allowed her to bleed for five-and-a-half hours and did not tell medical authorities about her bleeding.
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The 2008 death is but one occasion of several where Sharpe has stood accused of harming his abortion clients. According to complaints, Sharpe perforated another woman's uterus in 2011, requiring a full hysterectomy and leaving her sterile. On two occasions, a complaint states, he failed to detect an ectopic pregnancy, a potentially life-threatening oversight.
Michigan pro-life activists are confused why any facility would give abortionists with spotted history the possibility to hurt more women.
Monica Miller of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society told LifeSiteNews.com that Sharpe “and abortionists like Robert Alexander, whose abortion mill was closed down in Muskegon – and who was immediately scooped up by Summit – are the bottom of the barrel of the medical profession. I would be very surprised if they had delivered a baby in the last 20 years. All they know is abortion.”
Yet the abortion industry is lucrative. “Reginald Sharpe still owns a mansion in Grosse Pointe, Michigan,” Miller told LifeSiteNews. “Once upon a time he had three abortion clinics going all at the same time.”
Mills hopes one day Sharpe will face justice for the harm he has done. The doctor declared bankruptcy in October 2012, allowing him to avoid paying any penalties in civil cases filed weeks earlier, she said.
“I understand declaring bankruptcy makes him judgment-proof,” she said. But “aren't there other remedies? Can't they go to federal court? Can't those authorities try to have his license taken away?”
Mills is looking for an attorney to represent the family of the 26-year-old victim or see him face criminal charges, if applicable.
Mills may be contacted here.