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Authorities: Woman died from abortion complications

USA TODAY
  • The procedure was completed over four days
  • Medical examiner%27s office says Morbelli was unable to clot blood after amniotic fluid spilled into her bloodstream
Jennifer Morbelli of New Rochelle, N.Y., died Feb. 7, 2013, after undergoing a late-term abortion procedure in Maryland.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- A woman died of complications from a late-term abortion at a Maryland clinic, authorities confirmed Wednesday.

The Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner found that Jennifer Morbelli, 29, a schoolteacher in White Plains, N.Y., died of complications from the abortion, after amniotic fluid in her womb spilled into her bloodstream. The office, which performed the autopsy, noted that she underwent the abortion because of a fetal abnormality.

She was "left with the inability to clot blood to stop bleeding," said Bruce Goldfarb, a spokesman for the Medical Examiner's Office.

Goldfarb said the official autopsy report would not be completed for several weeks.

Morbelli, a substitute teacher at the Church Street School in White Plains, was 33 weeks pregnant when the four-day procedure was performed in early February.

Morbelli, accompanied by her husband and an older woman, arrived at the Germantown Reproductive Health Services clinic Feb. 3 and returned again each of the following three days, a witness told The Journal News.

Officials at Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group that is looking into Morbelli's death, said she began experiencing problems at her hotel late Feb. 6, with shortness of breath and chest pains.

About 5 a.m. Feb. 7, she was taken to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, where she died.

One of the nation's top anti-abortion groups is weighing a legal challenge against the doctor who performed Morbelli's procedure. The group claims LeRoy Carhart left town shortly after completing the abortion and was not reachable when Morbelli needed emergency care.

Carhart, 69, of Nebraska, is one of just four doctors in the United States known to provide late-term abortions and has been a major target of the anti-abortion movement for years. He is a former colleague of Kansas doctor George Tiller, who was shot and killed by an abortion opponent in 2009 while attending church.

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