Deaths of 3 Women Following Abortions Spur Clinic Probes

State medical officials and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office are looking into the deaths of three women who underwent abortions at a South Los Angeles medical clinic, officials said Monday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Dawson of the medicolegal section of the district attorney’s office said there have been three deaths since August, 1986, at Her Medical Clinic, 2700 S. Figueroa St.

“I think we are going to do a preliminary investigation to determine whether a more extensive investigation is necessary,” Dawson said.

Meanwhile, he said, his office is awaiting the results of an inquiry by the state Board of Medical Quality Assurance, where a spokesman said Monday that a probe is under way but declined to provide details.

“They (the board’s investigations) are confidential until such time as we file a formal accusation against an individual physician charging medical misconduct,” said Vernon Leeper, the BMQA’s chief of enforcement.

Bob Dambacher of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office investigated the deaths of three Her Medical Clinic patients that occurred within about 15 months of each other.

Two of the young women died at California Medical Center after undergoing abortion procedures at the clinic, according to authorities. They were Donna K. Heim, 20, of Covina, who died on Aug. 12, 1986, and Liliana Cortez, who died a little more than a month later on Sept. 20.

The coroner’s office still has not finalized the case of a third woman, Michelle Thames, 18, of Lynwood, who died last Nov. 17, Dambacher said.

California Medical Center is the closest emergency room to Her Medical Clinic, according to Michelle Barker, the hospital’s senior vice president of public affairs.

Barker said that since the fall of 1982, it has sent four letters to medical authorities “stating the circumstances of cases from Her Medical Clinic.”

“There was enough concern that we felt it should be referred to the appropriate agency to conduct an investigation,” Barker said.

Attorney Alan R. Freedman, who represents Her Medical Clinic and its medical director, Dr. Leo F. Kenneally, defended the clinic as “clean and well staffed, with excellent equipment . . . (where) people are well cared for, not only medically but humanely.”

“There are literally thousands of patients who have gone through Her Medical Clinic with absolutely no problems,” he said. “People are absolutely thrilled with the treatment they received.”

Blames ‘Anti-Abortionists’

Freedman blamed “anti-abortionists” for creating the current interest in the clinic, arguing that state medical authorities have known for some time that the death of Heim and Cortez were related to anesthetics. He said he did not know how many abortions are performed a year at the clinic.

“The fact that it was going on during an abortion procedure is what people are jumping on,” he said. “They could have been going through some other surgery, with the same type of complications with anesthesia.

“We think the media is being used by people against abortion to forward their position.”

The BMQA’s investigation apparently involves the clinic’s medical director, Kenneally, because the state agency is only empowered to investigate individuals, not medical facilities.

Since Kenneally operates Her Medical Clinic as his office under his medical license, the Los Angeles County Department of Health is not involved in periodically inspecting it, as it does licensed facilities such as hospitals, authorities said.