ARTICLES

Will the State Let This One Slip By?

Another Botched Abortion at Durante's Clinic

By Carlos Bey

About 2:15 p.m. on May 7 in a small courtroom on the sixth floor of the state of California offices on Front Street between A and Ash streets (downtown San Diego), 32-year-old Anne Marie Santana from Victorville began to answer a series of questions. How old are your children? "Three, five, and seven -- girls." Did you have previous abortions? "Yes, in December, 1994 and August, 1996." Where did you have them? "At the same place, A Lady's Choice in Victorville with Dr. Durante."

What happened after your abortion on August 10, 1998? "I began experiencing pain at home, called Dr. Durante at 4 p.m. He prescribed Tylenol 3 with codeine. I called again at 11 p.m. when the pain wouldn't go away, and he prescribed two doses of codeine. When I couldn't sleep, I called the Victor Valley emergency room and the nurse said to try milk and toast. I called Dr. Durante at 4 a.m., and he told me he'd see me in the morning."

In the opening statement of these proceedings against Joseph Durante, 73, on May 7 -- before the questioning of Anne Marie Santana -- deputy attorney general Steven Zeigen asserted that the abortionist who flew in from Sacramento and performed the August, 1988 abortion on Santana under Durante's aegis called Durante after the abortion and told him the procedure had taken longer than normal, that he had had to penetrate deeper into the uterus, and that he might have perforated Santana's uterus. According to Zeigen, when Durante saw Santana late in the morning of August 11, he performed a D and C (dilatation and curettage) to remove any remaining tissue, but her pulse was 118 and her hemoglobin count was 17.1. An expert witness the next day of the hearings said these signs should have been enough to concern Durante. Durante sent Santana home after the D and C and told her to see Dr. Albano at the hospital if there were problems.

According to Zeigen's opening remarks, Santana couldn't reach Dr. Albano, and her boyfriend called Durante back on August 12th to say she was vomiting up "green stuff." Durante told the boyfriend not to take her to the emergency room, that Santana only needed something to eat.

When Santana went to the emergency room on the 13th and the hospital's doctor put a scope in her, he saw, according to Ziegen, "fecal exudate." Santana underwent four and a half hours of surgery to sew up her uterus and small bowel and to remove feces from throughout her abdominal cavity. She spent eight days in intensive care and 18 days total in the hospital.

Durante's attorney, Jay Hartz, from Los Angeles, works for members of the National Abortion Federation and represented Dr. Leo Kenneally. The Medical Board of California revoked Kenneally's license in 1995 for causing the death of two women in 1985. Hartz took the decision to a friendly superior court judge in Sacramento and had the medical board's decision overturned. Hartz, during his opening statement in Durante's case (Hartz's statement followed Zeigen's but preceded what lawyers call the direct examination of Santana) at least once slipped and said "Kenneally" instead of "Durante." Hartz described Durante as a "valuable resource in the community" because he "performed 3000 abortions a year" and was "the only one in the San Bernadino-Riverside area to do second-trimester abortions." A major thrust of Hartz's defense of Durante was that Santana had been contacted by "anti-abortion zealots who shaped the events and her statements."

The second day of the hearings on Front Street, Dr. Robert Gordon from UCSD hospital, who said he had performed at least 5,000 abortions, testified against Durante. Gordon claimed that Santana's abortionist in August of 1998 thought she was 11 weeks pregnant and used a number 12 cannula, instead of a smaller one used for 8-9 weeks' gestation. Gordon said that given Santana's symptoms -- persistent pain, elevated pulse and hemoglobin counts, and vomiting -- Durante should have presumed her uterus had been perforated and that his treatment of her represented a "departure from accepted norms." Gordon asked why there were no notes of Santana's abnormal symptoms on her chart. According to a reporter's phone coversation with deputy attorney general Zeigen, Durante had made no notations on Santana's chart of the phone coversations she had with Durante on August 10, 11, or 12, no mention of the vomiting, and nothing about the call she had made before going to the emergency room on August 13.

Eugene Glick, an abortionist who retired in 1992 and lives in Reno, Nevada, testified on the afternoon of May 8 on behalf of Durante. Glick, according to Zeigen, had done over 20,000 abortions and has only come back into practice since 1992 for six months to take over someone's clinic who "got into trouble." Glick, author of Abortion -- A Practical Guide for Doctors, claimed that uterine perforations are a normal consequence of abortion procedures and that Dr. Durante had followed standard medical practices. (In his book Glick writes, "The main cause of perforation is inexperience or inaccurate examination and diagnosis.")

The judge in the Santana case, James Ahler from Escondido, seemed even-handed. He sustained Ziegen's objections of irrelevance after Hartz grilled Santana for 10 to 15 minutes on how her testimony had been prepared for her by pro-lifers. (Santana held her ground and pointed out that she had contacted an attorney long before she met the "church ladies" in the McDonalds across the street from Durante's clinic. The ladies put her in touch with a women's group, who told her of her rights to contact the medical board.) Tuesday morning, May 8, Ahler asked Glick to leave the courtroom during Gordon's testimony, saying this was the principle of Susanna and the Elders (hearing one witness influences what the next witness might say). But Ahler restrained Gordon for over-reaching in his criticism of Durante. Ahler should have a proposed judgement within 60-90 days after the early May hearings -- by July or August -- on whether Durante will lose his license.

Sidebar: The Durante Time-Line
Sidebar: The Repairman, Excerpt's from Reddy's Testimony

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