1926: Fatal Work of an Unknown Perp

On February 2, 1926, Alberta Handy, a 38-year-old Black woman, died of a botched abortion in Chicago. The perpetrator was never caught.

Alberta was a homemaker, native of Nashville, wife of Henry Handy and daughter of John and Hattie (Knid) Wercland.

Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. For more about abortion in this era, see Abortion in the 1920s.

During the first two thirds of the 20th Century, while abortion was still illegal, there was a massive drop in maternal mortality, including mortality from abortion. Most researches attribute this plunge to improvements in public health and hygiene, the development of blood transfusion techniques, and the introduction of antibiotics. Learn more here.

1972: Doc Chooses Risky Approach, Kills Teen

Fifteen-year-old Gwendolyn M. Drummer was a student at Harry Ellis High in Richmond, California, when she was admitted to Doctor's Hospital of Pinole for a safe and legal abortion, to be performed January 28, 1972. Her doctor chose the saline abortion method.

These abortions are performed by replacing amniotic fluid with a strong salt solution. In the decades after WWII, saline was being abandoned in countires where abortion was legal, in favor of safer methods. But as laws loosened up in the US, American docors adopted the method. A British study published in 1966 found that the saline would enter the mother's bloodstream and cause brain damage. Swedish researchers noticed an unacceptably high rate of complications and deaths. Sweden and the Soviet Union followed Japan in abandoning saline abortion as too dangerous by the late 1960s.

Gwendolyn's doctor injected the saline into her uterus. It got into Gwendolyn's blood stream, just as British, Japanese, Soviet, and Swedish doctors had repeatedly warned it could do. Gwendolyn suffered organ damage. She developed pneumonia, and died on January 31.

Other January Deaths

I've been unable to pinpoint the date on which these women lost their lives to abortion, but I still want their lives and deaths to be remembered, so on this last day of January, here are the unspecified January deaths.

At the very beginning of 1880, Mary McCarty, wife of C.H. McCarty of New Haven, was the "unsuspecting and unfortunate victim of the criminal or culpably stupid operation" that ended her life. She was approximately 30 years old. Dr. Banks was arrested on Pine Island.

Priests for Life posts a list of women who have died from legal abortions, including Rosael Rodriguez, who died in January of 1986 at the age of 27, according to Social Security. She had been born on April 2, 1958. Priests for Life cite a March 5, 1992 article in the Virgin Islands Daily News. They cite one other death, that of Diane Adams, from that article.

Two Midwives's Fatal Work

A coroner's inquest into the January 30, 1893 death of Bertha Kern at St. Mark's Hospital in New York concluded that she had died as a result of an abortion performed on her by midwife Caroline Kraft. The conclusion was based on statements made by Bertha prior to her death. Her lover, Franz Steinbrenner, was exonerated.

On January 30, 1912, 21-year-old Jeanette Mebzarek died in Chicago from an abortion perpetrated by nurse/midwife Anna Chezanowaki that same day. Chezanowaki was indicted by a Grand Jury on February 15, but the case never went to trial.

Three Historic Deaths

Rose Lipner, age 32, mother of 2, died at Riverdale Hospital on January 29, 1936.
Dr. Maxwell C. Katz, who lived at Riverdale (maternity) Hospital, which he operated, signed a death certificate indicating that Rose had been operated on for a tumor. After the funeral, an anonymous caller notified police that the death was suspicious, and Rose was exhumed for an autopsy. The medical examiner determined that Rose had died from an abortion. Katz was arraigned for second-degree manslaughter.

On January 29, 1858, Mahitable Ash got a mysterious telegram telling her to go to the home of Dr. William Howard. Her twin daughters, Olive and Olivia, who were supposed to be visiting the widowed mother of Olive's suitor, had instead gone to Howard's home for Olive to undergo and recover from an abortion. Olive died in the evening shortly after her mother's arrival.

On January 29, 1883, a widow named Adeline Savroch died on the scene from a criminal abortion. Midwife Bertha Twachaus was held without bail for murder in Adeline's death. A saloon keeper named Julius Grosse, and his housekeeper, Celia Arlep, were held as accessories.

Tragedies from the 19th and 20th Centuries

Today's anniversaries run the full gamut of abortion deaths, from the self-induced and lay abortion to abortions performed by doctors both before and after legalization.

On January 28, 1867, Elizabeth E. Kimball died at her home. Elizabeth was a war widow, whose husband had been Lieutenant Colonel Edgar Allison Kimball of the 9th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, also known as Hawkins' Zouaves. Dr. George Beakley was held responsible for her fatal abortion.

On January 28, 1911, 18-year-old homemaker Lillie Hirst died in Chicago from an abortion that had been perpetrated less than a week prior. Dr. Aldrich and Mrs. Treshelling were held by the Coroner's Jury and indicted, but the case never went to trial.

On January 28, 1912, 28-year-old homemaker Mary Balogh, an immigrant from Hungary, died at the practice of midwife Anna Klickner from an abortion perpetrated there the previous day. Klickner was arrested at the scene but escaped. She was captured on November 26 and indicted on December 15. The case never went to trial.

On January 28, 1918, 27-year-old Annabella Lewis, a homemaker, died in at West Penn Hospital in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The autopsy concluded that she had performed a self-induced abortion using slippery elm bark.

Sometime in early January, 1947, Iva Rodeffer Davis Coffman performed an abortion on Kerneda C. Bennett, resulting in her death on January 28 and leaving her husband, J. Raymond Bennett, a widower. Kerneda, though living with her husband in Harrisonburg, was pregnant as a result of an extramarital affair. She asked her friend, Irene Davis, to help her arrange the abortion.

Evangeline L. McKenna was 38 years old when she checked into Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles for an abortion and tubal ligation. Two days after the procedure, she had a seizure. She stopped breathing and went into cardiac arrest. Doctors told the family that Evanegline was brain dead, but they held out hope and asked that she be put on life support. On January 28, 1974, after twelve days on life support, Evangeline was pronounced dead. Evangeline's death, in addition to being a tragedy for her family and loved ones, also highlights the disproportionate damage that legal abortion causes among Blacks in the United States. Though black women are only 13% of the female population in the US, and though they are more likely than white women to oppose abortion, they account for a full 35% of legal abortions reported. Black women, like Evangeline, also account for fully 50% of reported legal abortion deaths.

"I cry every day when think of how horrible her death was."

On January 24, 1987, 37-year-old Belinda Ann Byrd had a safe and legal abortion performed by Stephen Pine at Inglewood Women's Hospital in Los Angeles, California. Belinda was left unattended for three hours after the abortion, and was found unresponsive. Staff at Inglewood delayed an additional two hours before transferring her to a hospital with appropriate emergency services.Belinda was one of 74 women who had abortions in Inglewood's single operating room that day, and one of 24 whose abortions were performed in the final two hours of the day. Belinda remained comatose until her death on January 27.

Belinda's mother wrote to a Los Angeles district attorney:

I am the mother of Belinda Byrd, victim of abortionists at [Inglewood]. I am also the grandmother of her three young children who are left behind and motherless. I cry every day when I think how horrible her death was. She was slashed by them and then she bled to death ... and nobody cares. I know that other young black women are now dead after abortion at that address. ... Where is [the abortionist] now? Has he been stopped? Has anything happened to him because of what he did to my Belinda? Has he served jail time for any of these cruel deaths? People tell me nothing has happened, that nothing ever happens to white abortionists who leave young black women dead. I'm hurting real bad and want some justice for Belinda and all other women who go like sheep to slaughter.

In the wake of the series of abortion deaths at Inglewood, the authorities inspected the place. Among other things, they caught an abortionist writing post-operative examination notes without even examining the patients. When the state closed Inglewood for numerous violations, the facility simply re-opened as Inglewood Women's Clinic; as a clinic rather than a hospital they were no longer subject to the same intense scrutiny and were able to remain in business.

Other women known to have died after abortions at the Inglewood facility include Kathy Murphy, Cora Lewis,Lynette Wallace, and Elizabeth Tsuji.

1920, 1956, 1990 -- All Equally Dead

On January 26, 1920, 23-year-old Lydia Swanson, daughter of Swedish immigrants, died at Chicago's Post Graduate Hospital from an abortion perpetrated by Dr. Rosa Gollnick. Gollnick was arrested on January 27 and went to trial, but was acquitted on June 18.

Clara Thornton survived her abortion at the hands of Santa Barbara abortionist Lois Brown, but her roommate, Lucy Sanchez, who used the same abortionist just a week later, was not so fortunate. She died on January 26, 1956. Brown was convicted of both abortions as well as murder in Lucy's death.

Ingar Weber, age 28, died January 26, 1990, in a Louisiana hospital. She had been treated for acute kidney failure after a safe and legal abortion performed at Delta Women's Clinic in Baton Rouge on January 20, 1990. Ingar's family sued the clinic and its doctors, Richardson P. Glidden and Thomas Booker. They faulted the doctors with failing to diagnose Ingar's kidney problems, or her deteriorating physical condition, before, during, or after the abortion. Delta had also been sued following the death of another abortion patient. This woman was most likely 27-year-old Sheila Hebert, who died after an abortion on June 6, 1984. Delta was sued for an abortion performed in 1984 which left the patient with a uterine laceration and a retained fetal leg. She had to be hospitalized. Delta was sued after an abortion in 1974 that so badly damaged the patient's uterus that she needed a hysterectomy. Another patient reported that after surgery at Delta in 1998, she had to have a colostomy. Delta shut down in 2001 after an electrical problem caused a fire which gutted the facility, but later reopened in another building.