Contact: Troy Newman, President, 316-841-1700; Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Policy Advisor, 316-516-3034; both with Operation Rescue, info@operationrescue.org

HYANNIS, Mass., Feb. 21 /Christian Newswire/ -- Five months after killing 22-year old Laura Hope Smith during an abortion, Rapin Osathanondh has relinquished his medical license in the wake of a criminal investigation and disciplinary action by the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine.

The Board had moved to suspend Osathanondh's license pending further investigation, declaring him to be a "risk to public safety." In a surprise move yesterday, Osathanondh instead permanently surrendered his license, and will not practice medicine again anywhere.

On Monday, the Boston Medical Examiner's office declared that the cause of Smith's death was "cardiac pulmonary arrest during anesthesia during a voluntary termination of pregnancy."

Calls to Osathanondh's clinic revealed that it is not accepting patients, but is referring women to other clinics.

Smith had sought an abortion from Osathanondh on September 13, 2007, at his office, Women's Health Center, in the Cape Cod town of Hyannis. Smith was placed under full anesthesia when only Osathanondh and a non-medical receptionist were present. When Smith suddenly stopped breathing, the receptionist phoned 911 but gave very little information to the dispatcher. Smith died later that day.

Ten days after Smith's death, Osathanondh met with Smith's mother, Eileen, and showed her medical records that caused her to believe that his negligence was responsible for Laura's death.

Operation Rescue first broke the news of Laura's death, then worked with Eileen to apply public pressure to authorities so that Laura's death was not covered up.

"I feel like this was a group effort and you were part of it!" Eileen Smith told Operation Rescue after receiving news of Osathanondh's license surrender.

"While nothing can bring back Laura and her baby, we take great comfort in knowing that Osathanondh will never again hurt another woman or kill another innocent child," said Operation Rescue spokesperson Cheryl Sullenger. "We commend Eileen Smith on her tireless dedication to seeking justice for Laura, in spite of the personal grief and huge obstacles that she had to overcome.

"Most of the time authorities just want to sweep abortion complications and deaths under the rug, slap the abortionist on the wrist, and send him on his merry way. That certainly would have happened in this case if not for Eileen's determination and for groups like ours that kept Laura's death on the front burner."
 
About Operation Rescue
Operation Rescue is one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the nation.  Operation Rescue recently made headlines when it bought and closed an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas and has become the voice of the pro-life activist movement in America.  Its activities are on the cutting edge of the abortion issue, taking direct action to restore legal personhood to the pre-born and stop abortion in obedience to biblical mandates.