Aisha Chithira died after a botched abortion at the Marie Stopes centre in Ealing.
"How ironic that Aisha died at the hands of the first abortion centre where pro-lifers are no longer allowed to offer life-saving help."
A woman who died following a late-stage abortion procedure was discharged from the clinic despite vomiting and swaying so much she looked "drunk", an inquest has heard.
Aisha Chithira, who had travelled from Ireland at 22 weeks pregnant for an abortion at the Marie Stopes Clinic in Ealing, died after "extensive internal bleeding" and cardiac arrest in a taxi on 21 January 2012.
Dr Adedayo Adedeji, who carried out the abortion, and two nurses, were acquitted of manslaughter in May 2016, after the prosecution refused to offer evidence in court.
Now, only a week after Ealing Council imposed a Public Space Protection Order banning pro-lifers from holding vigils and offering help outside the clinic, the inquest into Mrs Chithira's death at that same clinic is being held.
Denying culpability
At the start of the week-long inquest at West London Coroner’s Court, nurse Gemma Pullen insisted that Mrs Chithira was well enough to leave the clinic. However, she was vomiting before leaving, and the taxi driver who collected her said: "she didn't seem with it at all. She looked like she was drunk."
Ms Pullen disputed the evidence of the taxi driver, and when asked about comments made by Mrs Chithira that she "'wanted to leave' because you all wanted to go home", she replied "that’s not true."
Whose fault?
Dr Adedeji, who said he had carried out around 2000 abortions, said that he noticed "a small tear at the neck of the womb at the right side" during the surgery, but that it was "caused by the foetal parts that were coming out."
"She didn't ring back...Aisha was dead"
Mrs Chithira's widower Ryan Kapengule said in a statement that he spoke to his wife by phone as she was preparing to leave the clinic and travel to her cousin's house in Slough, but she told him she was "too weak to speak" and ended the call.
"I kept ringing her but there was no reply, Aisha didn’t ring back or reply to my texts - I thought at first she had arrived in Slough and just wanted to rest.
"Her sister called me, this was at 12.42am. She asked me where Aisha was and I said she was in Slough, she said she wasn’t in Slough.
"Ten minutes later she called me back and said someone had called her and Aisha was dead."
The tip of the iceburg
In a press release, SPUC's Antonia Tully said that the tragic case of Aisha Chithira "exposes the ugly reality of the abortion industry in our country."
"Aisha Chithira, who died after a bungled abortion and appalling treatment at a Marie Stopes clinic in Ealing, represents only the tip of the iceberg of women who die, are injured or left with long term problems resulting from infection, extreme emotional distress or other factors."
Yet Marie Stopes gets a buffer zone
None of the media reports of this story mentioned the the Care Quality Commission reports which condemned Marie Stopes International for over 2,600 breaches of health and safety or that Ealing Council last week imposed a buffer zone stopping pro-lifers from offering alternatives to abortion outside the clinic.
"Aisha's case shows us what abortion really is: a baby is killed and a woman is harmed, in Aisha's case fatally," said Mrs Tully. "The one ray of hope women for like Aisha have is that someone might be there at outside the abortion clinic offering help, support and love. And now there is a national campaign to prevent peaceful, prayerful pro-life vigils from taking place outside places which carry out abortions.
"How ironic that Aisha died at the hands of the first abortion centre where pro-lifers are no longer allowed to offer life-saving help."
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