Nevada woman’s death after taking abortion pills spurs lawsuit, safety fears

The family of a Nevada woman who died of sepsis after taking abortion pills is suing for wrongful death, a case that is reigniting safety concerns as the Biden administration seeks to expand access by relaxing medical protocols.

Alyona Dixon, 24, died Sept. 28, 2022, less than a week after she was prescribed the two-pill abortion regimen at a Planned Parenthood clinic. The cause of death was “complications from septic abortion,” said attorney Mark Rouse, who represents the family.

Her husband, Michael Dixon, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit earlier this month against Dignity Health Emerus-Blue Diamond, the nonprofit health system that operates the emergency center in Las Vegas where she initially sought treatment for cramps and bleeding.

“The death of Alyona Dixon was tragic and devastating for her young family,” said Mr. Rouse, an attorney at Bighorn Law in North Las Vegas. “Alyona loved kids and hoped to one day operate a kid’s play center. Unfortunately, she will never have that opportunity. We believe the evidence will show that Alyona’s death was preventable and that the defendants should be held accountable for their conduct.”

The lawsuit isn’t against the maker or provider of the abortion pills. At Planned Parenthood, Ms. Dixon was “appropriately counseled about the risks of the abortion medication,” according to an expert declaration filed with the lawsuit.

Even so, pro-life advocates argued that the death of the young mother, who leaves behind a 2-year-old son, should come as a gut check on the risks of abortion pills as the Biden administration seeks to lift safeguards in the name of expanding access.

“This is chemical abortion. A woman was given chemical abortion pills and dies of sepsis. Lawsuit has been filed,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said in a social media post.

Katie Daniel, state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, blasted the Food and Drug Administration and Nevada’s lenient abortion laws, saying the Dixon family and the American people “deserve answers.”

“Biden’s FDA, too, must be held accountable for removing safety standards and allowing mail-order abortion pills without even an in-person doctor visit,” Ms. Daniel said. “Abortion pills are dangerous and do not belong on the market.”

In January, the FDA allowed mifepristone to be delivered by mail, making permanent a rule enacted temporarily by the Biden administration during the pandemic, and sold by certified retail pharmacies.

Ms. Daniel demanded a “full, transparent investigation of this young woman’s death,” which comes with hospital visits from abortion pills on the rise as they overtake surgical abortions as the most common U.S. method of pregnancy termination.

Nevada Woman Died of Sepsis After Planned Parenthood Abortion

“Media reports leave many unanswered questions about this avoidable tragedy. We demand a full, transparent investigation of this young woman’s death, including the role of Planned Parenthood.”https://t.co/9dRVPIia5X

— SBA Pro-Life America (@sbaprolife) September 25, 2023

The case also comes as the FDA is embroiled in a lawsuit filed by pro-life doctors challenging its 2000 approval of mifepristone, the first of two drugs in the two-pill protocol.

In August, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed mifepristone to remain on the market but upheld a lower court decision suspending a host of FDA moves since 2016 aimed at increasing access. They include removing requirements for in-person doctor visits, non-fatal adverse-event reporting, and physician dispensation, as well as increasing the gestational age for use from seven to 10 weeks.

A previous stay by the Supreme Court, however, means there will be no change in the pill’s availability until the high court revisits the issue, which could happen as early as next year.

The FDA has argued that serious complications from mifepristone are “extremely rare.”

Others vouching for the drug include Planned Parenthood, which said that “medication abortion” is “safer than many other medicines like penicillin, Tylenol and Viagra.”

“Decades of studies have shown that medication abortion is safe and effective,” the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute said in an Aug. 31 update. “By 2020, medication abortion accounted for more than half of all abortions obtained in the United States, up from 39% in 2017.”

Alyona Dixon was eight weeks pregnant when she received the abortion pills at Planned Parenthood. Days later, she went to the Dignity Health — St. Rose Dominican Hospital Emergency Department, where she was treated and told to follow up, but not given a pelvic exam or seen by an obstetrician-gynecologist, according to the lawsuit.

The doctor “failed to adequately rule out sepsis as a cause of Ms. Dixon’s symptoms,” Dr. Hany Atallah, chief medical officer at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, said in the expert declaration.

“Ms. Dixon’s white blood cell count was 16.43, which should’ve prompted increased concern for infection with the most obvious source being related to her medical abortion,” Dr. Atallah said. “This should’ve prompted a pelvic exam to ensure that there were no additional findings that required antibiotics or further evaluation by an OB/GYN.”

The following day at 11:12 a.m., Ms. Dixon arrived at Desert View Regional Medical Center with lower abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and bleeding. She was pronounced dead at 5:32 a.m. the next day.

The lawsuit alleged that Dignity Health advertised itself as having a “comprehensive emergency department,” but did not have an OB/GYN on call, which was “a substantial factor in Alyona’s untimely death.”

A spokesperson for Dignity Health declined to comment on ongoing litigation.

“While we share in the grief over the loss of any patient, Dignity Health policy does not permit us to comment on matters of pending litigation,” hospital spokesperson Gordon Absher told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The complaint filed Sept. 14 in Clark County District Court seeks at least $15,000 in damages for medical and funeral costs, as well as compensatory, punitive and general damages.

Pro-life groups argue that emergency rooms are seeing a surge driven by the increased popularity of the pills versus surgical abortion.

A 2021 study by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute found that abortion-related ER visits soared more than 500% from 2002-15, based on an analysis of Medicaid claims. During the same period, use of abortion pills in the study population rose from 4.4% to 34.1%.

“[B]y 2015, a majority of these emergency room visits were miscoded as spontaneous miscarriages, potentially putting patients at risk and masking the true dangers of chemical abortion,” the institute said.

There were 32 mifepristone-associated deaths from 2000 to 2022, including two cases of ectopic pregnancy, while the pills have been used to end more than 5 million U.S. pregnancies, according to the FDA.