021893 Woman Tells Sordid Tale At Trial In Abortion

By RICHARD PEREZ-PENA

Testifying at the trial of a doctor accused of attempting an illegal third-trimester abortion on a woman and severing her fetus's arm, the woman yesterday described the doctor's East Village clinic as a terrifying place where dirty instruments were used and a woman's screams could be heard.

Rosa Rodriguez, 21, testified in' State Supreme Court in Manhattan that on her first visit to Dr. Abu Hayat's clinic at 9 Avenue A, "I heard screaming, someone saying not to kill the baby." When she asked why the woman was screaming, she said, Dr. Hayat told her, "Not everyone wants anesthesia, and not everyone can pay for the anesthesia."

When she complained that the instruments Dr. Hayat intended to use on her looked dirty, she testified, an aide to the doctor "put water on them and rinsed them," rather than sterilizing them.

Two days after the abortion procedure began, Miss Rodriguez gave birth to a baby girl, Ana Rosa Rodriguez, who survived despite the loss of her right arm.

'Abortion Mills'

Dr. Hayat's case has attracted wide attention, in part because of the gruesome charges against him and in part because it shed light on a problem that extended far beyond Miss Rodriguez's case. The authorities say that every year in New York City, substandard "abortion mills" like Dr. Hayat's prey on thousands of women, most of them poor immigrants who know little about their rights under the law or the medical care available to them.

In the weeks after his arrest, more than 30 women came forward to say Dr. Hayat botched their abortions, and officials said a 17-year-old girl died because he perforated her uterus during an abortion.

But criminal charges of this type remain extremely rare. From 1987 through 1991, only four people were arrested in New York State for illegal abortions and none were prosecuted for that crime, though they may have faced other charges, said Colleen A. Roche, a spokeswoman for the State Division of Criminal Justice Services.

Dr. Hayat, 62, is charged with knowingly attempting an abortion well past New York State's legal limit of 29 weeks, or about 51/2 months into a pregnancy. Miss Rodriguez was, in fact, 7 to 71/Z months pregnant, prosecutors assert.

The doctor, who moved to the United States from his native India in 1969, is also charged with several counts of assault and related charges.

If convicted of all charges, he faces a maximum sentence of 201/a to 61 years in prison.

Miss Rodriguez, whose testimony is to continue today, has not yet been

`Abortion mills' are said to prey on poor immigrants.

cross-examined by Dr. Hayat's lawyer, Ronald J. Veneziano. Neither Mr. Veneziano nor the doctor would comment on her testimony. Mr. Veneziano took the unusual gambit of not giving an opening statement at the trial, so the defense's version of events remains a mystery.

A previous lawyer for Dr. Hayat stated soon after the doctor's arrest that he had never attempted an abortion on Miss Rodriguez.

Miss Rodriguez, a Dominican immigrant, said she speaks English, but she testified in court in Spanish, using an interpreter. ,

She said that when she first went to the clinic, on Oct. 25, 1991, Dr. Hayat examined her manually but did not use a sonogram, a machine that creates a picture of the fetus in the mother's womb and is commonly used to determine its age. She said the doctor injected a fluid into her abdomen, told her to return the next day and warned her not to go to a hospital.

Typically, mid-term and late-term abortions begin with an injection into the womb of a saline solution intended to kill the fetus and induce labor, said Dr. Hakim Elahi, medical director of Planned Parenthood of New York City.

When she returned on Oct. 26, Miss Rodriguez testified, she told the doctor that she was having second thoughts because she had felt the fetus move a great deal during the night. "He told me no, that he could not stop the procedure," she said.

She testified that Dr. Hayat gave her an anesthetic injection, and when she awoke, there was blood on the table where she lay, on her legs and on her blouse, which she had not taken off. Yet, she said, the doctor told her that all he had done was to inject more of the liquid into her uterus. Once again, she said, he told her to return the next day and then said, "If you feel pain, don't tell anyone - don't go to any hospital."

Dr. Hayat and his assistants did not help her wash herself, Miss Rodriguez said, and though she complained that she was still groggy and needed to lie down, they forced her to leave the clinic soon after she awoke.

That night, she said, she went into labor and went to Jamaica Hospital in Queens, where her daughter was born.