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Eighteen-year-old Lexi Arguello died after late-term abortion complications and delayed care at Fort Collins Planned Parenthood in Colorado, Operation Rescue reported this week. We demand to see justice for the allegedly negligent care Planned Parenthood provided to Lexi and her baby.

On February 6, 2025, Lexi Arguello went to Planned Parenthood seeking an abortion. During the D&E abortion procedure, Lexi reportedly began experiencing an amniotic fluid embolism – a life-threatening complication which would have warranted an immediate call to emergency services.

According to Lexi’s grandparents, instead of calling for an ambulance immediately, Fort Collins Planned Parenthood admitted they waited too long to call for help and they specifically requested no sirens on the ride to the hospital. Local sidewalk counselors testified that this is a common practice of Planned Parenthood to ensure that emergency vehicles do not draw attention. These counselors also reported that Planned Parenthood goes so far as to request that emergency vehicles travel through neighboring properties instead of using the much more convenient main entrance.

Tragically, Lexi ended up dying at the hospital despite the doctors’ best efforts. Though initial reporting recorded her as being 20 weeks along in her pregnancy, family stated that Lexi was 22 weeks along.

Research shows there are clear risks involved with late-term abortion. As noted by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the CDC documented that the risk of maternal death from abortion increases by 38% for each additional week beyond eight weeks’ gestation. This amounts to a 76-fold higher risk of mortality in the late second trimester.

A study on amniotic fluid embolism states that once it is suspected a patient is suffering from this complication, doctors should provide immediate care, “including anesthesia, respiratory therapy, critical care, and maternal-fetal medicine to be involved in the ongoing care of women with AFE.” Amniotic fluid embolism can lead to cardiac arrest and widespread bleeding.

Lexi needed immediate care from emergency medical professionals, according to Operation Rescue, and Planned Parenthood was not equipped to handle this type of a complication. Their workers may have been more preoccupied with covering their own backs than getting Lexi the care she needed. Sarah Neely, chief operating officer of Operation Rescue, says, “Planned Parenthood Fort Collins not only had zero ability to address this life-threatening complication, but testimony from Dr. Kasun shows they made Lexi’s situation even worse, callously trying to protect their clinic over saving this girl’s life.”

At 22 weeks, Lexi’s baby’s inner ear would already be developed. Her baby would be able to move after hearing loud sounds. Her baby would be able to respond to taste, temperature, pain, pressure, movement and light. Even her baby’s left and right brain would already be showing differences. And, her baby would have felt pain.

Colorado has some of the most radical abortion laws in the country, signed into law by Democratic Governor Jared Polis, as well as an extreme constitutional amendment that passed in 2024 to enforce no gestational limitations on abortion. Colorado is the home of notorious late-term abortion doctor Warren Hern who performed more than 1,000 late term abortions at his center. Despite abortion industry messaging claiming late-term abortions only happening when babies have fetal abnormalities, Hern has published research indicating that abortions on babies with serious health problems made up just 30% of the 1,251 abortions his center performed from 2007-2012. In Hern’s own words, the reason for performing a late-term abortion doesn’t really matter, because the viability of a baby “is determined not by gestational age but by a woman’s willingness to carry it.”

Twenty-two weeks gestation is widely considered to be around the point of viability when unborn children can survive outside the womb. Curtis Means holds the world record for being the youngest premature baby born at 21 weeks gestation. Curtis’s doctor said, “I’ve been doing this almost 20 years… but I’ve never seen a baby this young be as strong as he was,” adding, “There was something special about Curtis.”

“Stories like Lexi’s show how women are also killed by dangerous late-term abortions that are entirely legal,” said Katie Glenn Daniel, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s Director of Legal Affairs and Policy Council. “Lexi should have been given the opportunity to fully understand the risks involved with late-term abortion, and she should have been able to trust that SHE would be prioritized in an emergency that threatened her life, not Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood must be held accountable and completely defunded.”