Regulators suspend doctor's license

Criminal probe expands in abortion case

By Paul Davenport
The Associated Press
Arizona Republic July 20, 1998

PHOENIX -- State regulators on Monday suspended the medical license of an abortion doctor accused of trying to abort a teen-ager's full-term baby last month and of allowing a woman to bleed to death in April.

Meanwhile, a prosecutor said a criminal investigation of Dr. John I. Biskind of Scottsdale has been expanded to include other abortions and attempted abortions, including the woman's death in April and another woman's death in 1995.

The Arizona Board of Medical Examiners voted unanimously to temporarily bar Biskind from practicing medicine. Board members said the suspension was an emergency measure to protect the public pending the outcome of the board's investigation into the two cases.

The board concluded in its initial investigation that the 32-year-old woman who bled to death in April essentially was abandoned by Biskind with inadequate monitoring at the Phoenix clinic where he works.

An autopsy found that Louann Herron died from a ruptured uterus caused by a medical instrument. Such injuries do happen, but the patients don't die if they get proper care, said Dr. Edward Sattenspiel, a board member from Phoenix.

Sattenspiel, the board member who oversaw the initial investigation, said it was impossible to believe that Biskind could not tell that the 17-year-old girl was 37 weeks pregnant instead of the claimed 23 weeks. The baby survived the June 30 abortion attempt with a fractured skull and lacerations.

"Dr. Biskind is incompetent to tell a woman in the middle of her pregnancy from a woman in the end of her pregnancy," Sattenspiel said. "Anybody that does this should not have the right to practice medicine. There are no excuses."

Biskind did not attend the board's hearing but attorney Larry Kazan said his client welcomed the investigation but denied the allegations.

Biskind has cooperated with the board "even though he's been tried and convicted in the newspapers and other media to this point," Kazan said.

However, several board members cited discrepancies in A-Z Women's Center records submitted in Herron's case, particularly regarding why paramedics were not called until it was too late.

The issue of whether the state should regulate all medical facilities where abortions are performed was renewed Monday. The Department of Health Services regulates hospitals and the Board of Medical Examiners oversees individual doctors and their offices, but other facilities fall in the middle.

"It is very obvious that this clinic is very, very much incompetent and yet we are doing nothing to stop this clinic from operating," said board member Carole Dooley of Tucson. "Everything is going on the head of this doctor."

The board agreed to have its staff investigate whether other physicians besides Biskind practice at A-Z Women's Center.

The state's regulation of facilities where abortions are performed is expected to come under legislative scrutiny. While lawmakers next spring will consider the automatic "sunset" of the Board of Medical Examiners, they also are expected to hold hearings in the meantime on related regulatory issues as well as abortion laws and regulations.

House Speaker Jeff Groscost, R-Mesa, said he wants lawmakers to investigate why Biskind was not suspended and only scolded after a previous patient's death in 1995 "and why he had to have something like this horrendous botched abortion to bring this to light."

Biskind, Groscost said, "killed two young women who walked into an abortion clinic having believed the rhetoric that this is a safe procedure. Talk about back alley abortions, the only difference is they listened to Muzak as they bled to death."

Earlier Monday, Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley said a criminal investigation of the botched abortion had been expanded to include the deaths of Biskind's two patients.

The focus of the investigation is whether Biskind knowingly violated the state's abortion laws.

"If this is an issue of just plain malpractice ... I'm not going to get into it," Romley said. "I'm not here to oversee the quality of medical care."

However, Romley said, "I have a feeling that there's more out there than we know about."