Anniversary: 1923 death, doctor indicted

On October 30, 1923, 19-year-old Mrs. Lydia Nelson died at Chicago's Englewood Hospital from an abortion performed there that day, evidently by Dr. Charles Klinetop. On January 15, 1924, Klinetop was indicted by a grand jury for felony murder in Lydia's death.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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Anniversary: 1993 death in New York

On October 9, 1993, 25-year-old Giselene Lafontant underwent an abortion by a Dr. Scher at Gynecare in Monsey, New York. She was 9 or 10 weeks pregnant. Within 20 minutes, Giselene had no pulse. She was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital and placed on a respirator. Efforts to save her life failed; Giselene died on October 28.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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1947 abortion killed baby, heiress, and doctor

At 11 AM on October 17, 1947, Dr. Paul Singer, a gynecologist, called police and reported that a woman had come to his office suffering from an incomplete abortion. He said that he had taken 22-year-old Jane Ward, heir to the Drake Bakeries fortune, to Park East Hospital, where Dr. Oswald Glasberg, a plastic surgeon, had helped him to complete the abortion.

Jane died on October 28, and the autopsy confirmed the cause of death as criminal abortion.

After the death, Singer and Glasberg were arrested and released on bail. The baby's father, Eduardo Schneidewind, a trade promotion executive for a South American government, was questioned as a material witness but was never indicted. Dr. Alejandro Ovalle, an X-ray technician, was sentenced to one year after pleading guilty as an accessory, having profited from abortion referrals.

Singer was convicted of manslaughter in Jane's death, and sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. The judge, Francis L. Valente, said that Jane had been subjected to "surgical mayhem," and that Singer and Glassberg were "completely devoid of human feeling and decency."

Glassberg was also convicted and sentenced to prison, but was never sentenced because six hours after the verdict on June 14, 1948, he committed suicide in his cell, having poisoned himself.

Singer appealed his conviction, which was upheld.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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Gorgeous on the inside, too

HT: Ashli

Friday Five: Eduardo Verástegui

Most CitizenLink calls to action involve petitions or phone calls to senators — not a trip to the Cineplex. Yet this one — a call to see the movie Bella during its opening weekend — is also important.

Bella is a small-budget underdog film with a big message that illustrates the inherent value of life. That’s why Eduardo Verástegui, the film’s leading actor and producer, dedicated three years of his life to the project.

He realized "80 to 90 percent" of what was coming out of the media was "poisoning our society.” So Verástegui set out to make films that not only entertain, but also make a difference — a far cry from the projects that sprung him into superstardom in his native Mexico and across Latin America.

Bella opens in select theaters this weekend. Verástegui talked to CitizenLink about his faith and his journey.

....

You visited an abortion clinic as part of your research for your part in Bella. Tell me about that.

....

I ended up going to an abortion clinic because I wanted to do research — to understand my character and understand the pain she was going through so I could help her. I thought it would be very simple and easy — just get in there, stop the first young lady and ask her a few questions. Of course, I was very naive and I didn’t know what was going to happen.

When I got there, I was in shock because I saw all young ladies — 16, 17 years old — going in, and I forgot about the film and I didn’t know what to say.

I see a group of people outside trying to convince a lady not to do it. A lady in that group pointed me to a couple who didn’t speak English, only Spanish. The couple recognizes me from the soap operas, and we start talking for like 45 minutes and became friends. We talked about life and faith and Mexico and her dreams. And she missed her appointment.

I called her the next day and said, “Listen, I don’t believe in coincidences; I was there for a reason.” So we built a friendship through the phone.

Months later I receive a call from a man who was there that day and he tells me he has great news: his baby was born yesterday, and he wanted to ask me permission to name him Eduardo.

I couldn’t even talk. I just started crying.

I didn’t plan to do that, but I was used by the grace of God as an instrument to save this beautiful baby. Even if Bella doesn’t sell one ticket, I rejoice in the Lord for little Eduardo.

Dealing with the unwanted: a slice of history

On October 27, 1838, Governor Lilburn W. Boggs of Missouri issued an Extermination Order, declaring that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace...." Most Missouri citizens backed the order (although some did question or denounce it). The Mormons were, in the simplest of terms, "unwanted."

On October 30, with the Extermination Order as justification, a band of the Missouri Militia launched an attack on a small Mormon settlement at Haun's Mill, killing 17 Mormons, including a 10-year-old boy who was shot in the head as he cowered under the bellows of the blacksmith shop, and a 78-year-old man who was shot after he had surrendered his musket.

Several years ago, I spoke with a Latter-Day Saints historian, who told me that survivors of the Massacre sued the state of Missouri over the deaths of their loved ones, taking their case all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court, he said, backed the state on the grounds that the killings were perfectly legal.

Meanwhile, the Extermination Order remained on the books in Missouri until recinded by executive order of Governor Christopher S. Bond on June 25, 1976. So until 1976, it was perfectly legal to kill a Mormon in Missouri. Did that make it right?

Anniversary: Hospital's efforts to save teen abortion patient fail

Sixteen-year-old Natalie Meyers was brought to San Vicente Hospital in Los Angeles by her mother on October 21, 1972. Milton Gotlib injected saline into Natalie's uterus on the 21st.

On October 22, Natalie expelled the dead baby but retained the placenta. She had trouble breathing and suffered abdominal pain, so San Vicente staff transferred Natalie to County-USC Medical Center just before midnight.

Natalie was in shock when she arrived at County-USC. She underwent a D&C there, but remained in shock from infection in her uterus. On October 26, a hysterectomy was performed to try to control the infection, to no avail. Natalie was pronouced dead at 9:35AM on October 27.

The autopsy found most of Natalie's internal organs swollen and hemorrhagic. Death was attributed to hyaline membrane disease brought on by the abortion.

Edward Allred's mega-chain would become a founding member of the National Abortion Federation.


Natalie is one of many abortion patients to die at one of Edward Allred's facilities. Others include:

• Denise Holmes, age 24, 1970
  
• Patricia Chacon, age 16, 1984
  
• Mary Pena, age 43, 1984
  
• Josefina Garcia, age 37, 1985
  
• Lanice Dorsey, age 17, 1986
  
• Joyce Ortenzio, age 32, 1988
  
• Tami Suematsu, age 19, 1988
  
• Susan Levy, age 30, 1992
  
• Deanna Bell, age 13, 1992
  
• Christina Mora, age 18, 1994
  
• Kimberly Neil, 2000
  
• Chanelle Bryant, age 22, 2004
  

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Illegal anniversary, doc arrested

On October 12, 1929, 33-year-old Agnes Johnson underwent a criminal abortion at the Chicago office of Dr. Joseph Stern. On October 26, Agnes died. Stern was arrested that day. On November 1, he was indicted for felony murder by a grand jury.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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Letter to my Congresscritter

Sixty Pro-Life Groups Ask Congress to Block Funding Planned Parenthood

I'm not content to let any sixty groups speak for me.

I wish to add my voice to those calling for Congress to suspend funding for Planned Parenthood.

You might recall that the investigation into possible illegal harvesting of fetal parts was at a Planned Parenthood in Overland Park, Kansas. Dean Alberty indicated that he witnessed fetuses as old as 32 weeks being aborted. The recent allegations brought before law enforcements are therefore only rehashing what had already been attested to in the past.

But I would also like to point out Planned Parenthood's carelessness with the lives of the women who trust them. Perhaps you recall the horrible septic abortion deaths of Holly Patterson and Vivian Tran in California. They got their abortion drugs in an unapproved, off-label manner at Planned Parenthood.

But even after the needless deaths of these two women, Planned Parenthood did not mend their ways. Two additional women have died from septic abortions after being given RU-486 in an off-label manner at Planned Parenthood. These deaths are mentioned in the March 18, 2006 New York Times article, "After 2 More Deaths, Planned Parenthood Alters Method for Abortion Pill". These two women might well be alive today had Planned Parenthood not played Russian roulette with their lives.

Planned Parenthood also sent Diana Lopez home to bleed to death after an abortion in 2002. And just this year, Edrica Goode died of sepsis when a Planned Parenthood nurse-practitioner inserted laminaria into her cervix despite obvious signs of vaginal infection.

Planned Parenthood puts a lot more of our tax money into public relations than they do into safeguarding the lives of women who trust them.

I would be glad to provide more information about women and girls injured and killed after trusting Planned Parenthood.

Again, I hope to see your vote in favor of suspending all funding of Planned Parenthood until they stop breaking the law and start safeguarding women's health and lives.

I'd forgotten I had this

Analytical Tools. These are resources I've pulled together from prolife, prochoice, and abortion-neutral sources to help sort the chaff from the grain.

I'll be checking later for broken links. I just came up empty in blog searches and wanted to offer something of use.

If you spot a broken link you can let me know.

Relief or regret?

One of each. Though I think the jury is still out on the first woman. She probably hasn't even passed her due date yet, which is far too soon to have processed how she's going to cope.

A couple of things struck me in these women's stories.

First of all, they both ended up on the abortion table because they were sexually involved with men who were not committed to them. Buying love with sex, essentially. It's a losing proposition even if you don't end up pregnant.

Second of all, both of them found the abortion chute greased, so to speak. There was nobody to do anything but affirm a choice that was made in a period of intense stress, and in the second woman's case in an information vacuum.

HT: JJ

Select a Candidate Quiz

You, too, can take the quiz here.

I can't get all my results to post with their cut-and-paste code, so here's the raw text. Though I wonder.

John McCain Score: 52
Agree: Iraq, Immigration, Taxes, Stem-Cell Research, Health Care, Abortion, Social Security, Line-Item Veto, Energy, Death Penalty
Disagree: Marriage

Duncan Hunter Score: 45
Agree: Iraq, Taxes, Stem-Cell Research, Health Care, Abortion, Social Security, Line-Item Veto, Marriage, Death Penalty
Disagree: Immigration, Energy

Fred Thompson Score: 45
Agree: Iraq, Taxes, Stem-Cell Research, Health Care, Abortion, Social Security, Line-Item Veto, Marriage, Death Penalty
Disagree: Immigration, Energy

Tom Tancredo: Score: 37
Agree: Taxes, Stem-Cell Research, Health Care, Abortion, Social Security,Line-Item Veto,Marriage
Disagree: Iraq, Immigration, Energy, Death Penalty
 
Sam Brownback Score: 37
Agree: Taxes, Stem-Cell Research, Health Care, Abortion, Social Security, Line-Item Veto, Marriage
Disagree: Iraq, Immigration, Energy, Death Penalty
 
Mike Huckabee Score: 35
Agree: Stem-Cell Research; Health Care; Abortion; Social Security; Line-Item Veto; Marriage; Death Penalty
Disagree: Iraq, Immigration, Taxes, Energy

And I don't feel like formatting the rest. Suffice to say I'd take almost anybody but Satan ahead of Clintion or Obama, which was no surprise, was it?

And there's this quiz:

Here are the candidates in the order in which they match your views:
Click on a candidate's name or photo to learn more about the candidate.
Issues in boldface are those you selected as important.
A match on an issue is denoted with a check mark ().


Tom Tancredo 19.0

John McCain 18.0

Ron Paul 17.0

Mike Huckabee 16.0

Duncan Hunter 16.0

Fred Thompson 16.0

Anniversary: Woman dies, midwife or nurse implicated

On October 25, 1922, 24-year-old Lillian Hulbert died at Chicago's St. Anne's Hospital from complications of a criminal abortion performed on her there that day. The coroner identified a Mrs. M.C. Anderson as responsible for Lillian's death. Anderson's profession is given as nurse or midwife.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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I wonder who has died that we don't know about

The Mom blogged about her experience with RU-486. Her baby, sadly, had died in-utero. She was offered the choice between two abortion techniques to remove her dead baby, or to just wait it out. Not wanting to carry her dead child for possibly two more weeks, but not wanting her dismembered, either, The Mom chose the induction:

I wanted to write about my own experience taking Mifeprex, the abortion drug known as RU-486.

In July of 2006, I was 18 weeks pregnant with our sixth child. We were excited about this new person , but had all of the normal trepidations that come with a new baby. I don't think it matters if you are expecting your first or your tenth, the worries and fears are all the same.

On the fourth of July, we went to a friend's house for swimming and a bar-be-que in celebration, with plans to go downtown to watch the fireworks that night. I hadn't been feeling right for a couple of days and complained to my friend that I had a back ache, and just generally felt run down. I spent the day curled up in a chair and went home before the fireworks began.

The next day, I had the kids' grandmother come over and I drove myself in to my midwife's office for a little reassurance and to just get peace of mind that everything was okay. It wasn't. Our baby had died at some point during the previous week. I was given three options for what to do now:
1. Surgical intervention- Called a D&E, the doctor would dilate my cervix and evacuate the "contents" of my uterus (that's the way he put it..touching isn't it?)
2. Induce labor with Mifeprex within the next 24 hours to get things over with quickly
3. Wait for nature to take care of it.

Normally I'm in favor of doing things naturally, but it could have taken 2 or more weeks for me to go into labor, and I didn't feel that I could emotionally handle walking around with my dead baby inside of me waiting to set off an emotional time bomb. I chose the induction, then I had to call my husband and tell him our baby was dead, then tell our other children.

We went to the hospital the next morning at 9:00 AM for the induction. I was told that it could take up to 24 hours for labor to begin. Really, I just wanted them to give me the drugs and let me go home. I didn't want to spend 24 hours on the maternity ward listening to the cries of other people's healthy babies and wait for my own heartbreak to begin. I have been in labor a few times and thought it was reasonable to think that I would know when to come to the hospital. I was told I could bleed to death. I stayed.

Labor began for me about 3 hours after I took the first dosage. It was administered both orally and vaginally. Within the first hour, I understood why I couldn't have gone home. I began to pass blood clots. They came in steady succession like pearls on a string. They ranged in size from the size of a chicken's egg to as large as my fist. Every time I moved another clot would become loose and come out. I thought I was hemorrhaging; I thought I was going to bleed to death. It was horrific. I forgot why I was there for a while and just sat on the bed crying and shaking in fear that my 4 living children would grow up without me. I have no idea how much blood came out of my body. I stopped counting clots at 20. After 20, it just didn't seem to matter any more. I asked the nurse if my experience was normal and she assured me that this was what an RU-486 abortion looked like and that I was fine.

Our daughter's body was delivered four and a half hours after the first contraction. She was the size of my hand. She was smooth and shiny and pink with perfect fingers and toes. Heartbreakingly small and achingly perfect. Our midwife wiped her clean and laid her on a blanket before handing her to me. I have never seen such agony as I saw on my husband's face when he heard her whisper, "It's a girl." His face looked like it folded in on itself. Our baby was really and truly dead. Somehow it didn't seem real until we held her in our hands and looked at her through our tears.

It wasn't over yet. I still had to deliver the placenta. It took another two hours for it to let go and come out of me. The doctor who was supervising kept coming by to check and ask "Is it out yet?" in a strangely cold voice. I later learned from my midwife that she performed abortions herself and was deeply disturbed by our pain. She told our midwife to get us out of the hospital as quickly as possible because we were upsetting the staff, and that she didn't understand why we were crying over something which was little more than a tumor in medical terms.

I can not imagine being 14, at home, trying to hide this from my mother, and having this experience. My brain can't even get to that place of fear. A child, scared and alone, passing blood clot after blood clot, thinking you're bleeding to death, but afraid to tell in case you aren't. And then, delivering that impossibly small body. Perfect, lifeless, and undeniably human. What does a little girl do when her body hurts that much, and her mind fears that much, and her baby lies dead in her hand? How is this okay?

I am not sure what the answers are, but I do know that women deserve better than to be treated this way. Our bodies and our minds deserve better protection. People can chant and scream about the rights of women, but I know that women and girls have a right to something better than this. They have a right to something better than abortion.

Reprinted with permission. Thanks!

Excellent book now available online

When Abortion Was a Crime, Leslie Reagan

Reagan is unabashedly, nearly rabidly, prochoice, so nobody can dismiss her work as just so much antichoice agitprop. She does an excellent job of looking at what abortion was really like prior to decriminalization. And though she also clearly has no clue about people's motivations, she also clearly documents the campaign against abortion.

I consider it a must read for people on both sides.

The anniversary. And how I found out.

When Kevin Sherlock did his massive abortion mortality research in the 1980s, he wrote up the story of how 19-year-old Angela Scott died at Atlanta Women's Pavillion. I learned of Angela's death when I stumbled across the 1991 edition of his Abortion Death Log.

Angela's abortion had been performed on June 2 of 1979 at what I later confirmed was a National Abortion Federation member facility.



Angela stopped breathing in the recovery room. Staff rushed to her aid and managed to resuscitate her. They loaded her into an ambulance and turned their attention back to their other patients.

That was when they made a horrifying discovery. Deloris Smith, just 14 years old, had been put under sedation for an abortion being performed by Dr. Jacob Adams. The nurse-anesthetist who had been running Deloris' drip had rushed off to aid Angela -- and had left Deloris unattended, with the anesthesia drip still running. Alone and unconscious, with powerful drugs running unchecked into her body, the young girl had gone into cardio-respiratory arrest.

Since Dr. Adams had accompanied Angela to the hospital, staff refused to release Deloris to an ambulance until Adams returned to discharge her. This resulted in a 30-minute delay, during which time the ambulance crew was kept from treating the young patient.

Angela lingered for a week in a coma before dying on June 11. And Kevin's death log left us ignorant of the fate of Deloris. What had become of her? While we were writing Lime 5, Mona and I tracked down leads, but to no avail. We couldn't, with the resources available to us at the time, find out what had happened. Had she recovered? Was she still in a coma? Had she died?

We went to Washington DC for a press conference to launch Lime 5 I had a per-diem to cover my meals and incidental expenses, and quite a bit of free time while Mark and Tulane worked on the press conference. So off I went to Library of Congress to see what I could see.

I went to the periodicals archives and looked for old issues of the Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution. The papers had merged, and a librarian helped me to find where the indices for the separate papers were shelved. I figured I'd start in 1979, when Deloris had been injured, and work forward from there.

I turned to the proper index page for abortion stories, and found this:

"Girl, 15, dies after being in a coma since abortion last June"

I burst into tears there in the stacks, under the bewildered stare of the librarian.

"She died," I told him. Then I realized he'd have no idea what I was talking about. I stammered out something, I forget what, pulled myself together, and tried to find the article, but it wasn't on the microfilm where it was supposed to be. It wasn't until we got back to Texas that Mona was finally able to track it down.

Deloris had never regained consciousness. She'd finally been moved to a nursing home, where she died of adult respiratory distress syndrome on October 24, 1979, some time after her fifteenth birthday.

We also found one more article, one that I've lost. It said that Deloris' mother sued the clinic after her child's death. She had learned that the pregnancy test they had performed on the girl had come back negative.

Deloris Smith, dead at 15, might not have even been pregnant in the first place.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Christmas Catalog

It's coming on the Christmas season again! And World Vision has put out its Gift Catalog. I'm fanatical about clean water, and World Vision has many ways you can contribute to that. There are also options for helping options for helping children with disabilities. Other options focus on the needs of girls and women. And there are options for supporting health care.

World Vision has a four-star rating from Charity Navigator, an independent research group that analyzes how efficient a charity is by how much of their money goes to actually providing the services in question, rather than to administration and fund raising. Four stars is their highest rating, and means "Exceeds industry standards and outperforms most charities in its Cause."

Illegal anniversary: Doctor, pharmacy clerk charged

On October 16, 1936, 26-year-old Katherine DiDonato, mother of two, was admitted to Roosevelt Hospital to be treated for complications of a criminal abortion. Katherine's husband reported that the abortion had taken place three days earlier. Detectives were told that Katherine had bought pills from drug clerk Hyman Kantor, who had then recommended Dr. Aloysius Mulholland to perform an abortion.

Katherine died at 2 AM on October 23. Both Mulholland and Kantor were arrested and charged with homicide.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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Anniversary: Illegal abortion death, midwife convicted

Emma Bickel, a 59-year-old midwife, was charged with second-degree manslaugher in the death of 19-year-old Emily Nohavec of St. Louis. Bickel had been a midwife for 28 years, and had a reputation for "uprightness" and honesty.

Emily, who was single, had been living with her sister in St. Louis, and she worked as a clerk in her sister‘s vegetable store. On October 18, 1913, she first reported feeling ill. On Monday, October 20, a Dr. Reber was summoned to see her. He diagnosed her with septic peritonitis. The next day, her condition was critical and she was admitted to Rebekah Hospital. There, Dr. Garcia was called in for consultation. Drs. Reber and Garcia agreed that an immediate laparotomy was needed to try to save Emily‘s life.

The doctors found Emily‘s abdominal cavity inflamed. A cyst about the size of a pear surrounded her left ovary, her right ovary was surrounded by pus, and there was pus in her fallopian tubes. The doctors removed these purulent organs and inserted drainage tubes.

Dr. Reber also curetted Emily‘s uterus and packed it with iodoform gauze. Emily‘s uterus had an ulceration about the size of a hazelnut inside the cervix. The edges of this ulceration were ragged and torn, and Reber concluded that this was caused by instrumentation. Reber also believed that swelling near where the fallopian tube entered the uterus was caused by instrumentation. Reber believed that an abortion had been performed a week to ten days before he was first called to examine Emily.

Dr. Garcia, on the other hand, agreed that Emily had recently been pregnant, and that the pregnancy had ended at about two months, but noted "there were no direct punctures or cuts, scratches, or anything of that kind in the uterus, or in the abdomen." He agreed with Dr. Reber that the sepsis was caused by an abortion, but he disagreed about the abortion having been induced. Dr. Garcia concluded that Emily might merely have miscarried.

Despite the efforts of both doctors, Emily died the following day, October 23.

That same day, Dr. Hockdoerfer performed an autopsy. He made the same findings as Drs. Garcia and Reber, except that he also found a section of placental implantation about the size of a quarter. He agreed that retained placental tissue had caused the sepsis, but did not find any signs of damage from instruments. Emily had been in good health prior to her final, fatal illness.

While Emily was hospitalized, police officer William H. Coates arrested Emma Bickel and brought her to Emily‘s bedside. Coates testified that he asked Bickel if she knew the girl, and Bickel said yes, she did know her. Coates testified that he then said, "You performed an abortion on her, didn‘t you?" To which, he testified, Bickel replied, "Yes." Coates took Bickel to the police station where she made a statement. Coates wrote out the statement as follows:

Department of Police, City of St. Louis.
7:16 P. M., Oct. 22, 1913.
To whom it may concern I herein state that on or about October 13th, 1913, Emily Nohavec came to my house in the evening and said she was in trouble and wanted me to help her out. I told her it was dangerous for to do a thing like that, and she said, ‘You need not be afraid,‘ that ‘I won't tell on you.‘ I then inserted a catheter into the private parts and opened her womb. She then paid me about five or seven dollars; I don‘t remember which. She came back in two days, and I again put the catheter into the womb. She left, and I never saw her until I saw her this evening at the hospital.
The above statement was made of my own free will, and not by any threats or promises or violence to me.
[Signed] Emma Bickel.
Witnesses: Off. W. H. Coates; Off. David J. O‘Connor.

When called upon to testify in court, however, Bickel denied having performed an abortion on Emily. She said that she never knew Emily until the girl came to her house, saying that she was "in trouble." Bickel said that she asked Emily, "How far along?" To which Emily replied that her period was two weeks late. Bickel said that Emily told her that she was married, and that she had taken some medicine to cause an abortion, and had also taken a box of pills. Bickel said that she told Emily, "Well, if you are only two weeks gone they ought to bring you by your next monthlies." Bickel said that she then sent Emily away.

Bickel said that about two weeks later Emily, who had still not given her name, returned, saying that she was ill, and willing to pay $7 for an examination. Bickel said that she used a speculum to examine Emily, and found her cervix open and exuding a foul discharge. Bickel testified that she told Emily to consult a doctor. She said that this took place about two weeks prior to Emily‘s death, and that she‘d not seen the girl between the examination and being brought to the hospital by Officer Coates.

Bickel testified that she had confirmed that she knew Emily, and that the girl had come to her house, but that Coates did not ask her at the hospital if she had performed an abortion. She said that she was taken to the police station, that Coates had written out the statement and told her to sign it, so she‘d complied.

Bickel said that she‘d never told Coates that she‘d inserted a catheter, that she‘d tried to discourage abortion, telling Emily "that it was a dangerous thing to do a thing like that." She said that she‘d only signed the statement because she was excited and confused and was merely doing what she was told.

Despite her protestations of innocence, Bickel was convicted. She was sentenced to three years in prison. She unsuccessfully appealed her conviction.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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Who have I missed?

When I read this article in the Cape Cod TImes about the abortion death of Laura Hope Smith (pictured), I noticed at the bottom that it said that there were nine abortion related deaths in 2005.

I know of two for sure: Christin Gilbert (pictured) and Oriane Shevin. I also know of three possibilities: "Cherish", "Tara", and "Wanda", who died of complications of chemical abortions recently.

That means that if the CDC is actually managing to count all the dead (which I doubt - see why here), there are still four to seven women I don't know about who died just in 2005.

Does anybody have more information? The reporter must have contacted the CDC and gotten the data for 2005, which is evidently the most recent year they've even bothered pretending to research. The most recent Abortion Surveillance Summary I can find is for 2003. And it doesn't note abortion deaths for 2003, though it does note the following numbers for the most recent ten year period:

2002 - 9 (I found 3: Diana Lopez, "Adelle" Roe, and Stacy Zallie. So there are six women whose 2002 abortion deaths I don't know about.)

2001 - 6 (I found 1: Haley Mason. Five more deaths I don't know about.)

2000 - 11 (I found 3: L'Echelle Head, Kimberly Neil, and Nicey Washington. Eight more I don't know about.)

1999 - 4 (I found 1: "Yvonne" Roe. Three more I don't know about.)

1998 - 10 (I found 4: Tamika Dowdy, Lou Ann Herron, Kendra McLeod, and Virginia Wolfe. Six more I don't know about.)

1997 - 7 (I found 3: Maureen Espinoza, Tammy Harris, and Nichole Williams. Four more I don't know about.)

1996 - 9 (I found 4: Carolina Gutierrez, Sharon Hamptlon, Chivon Williams, and Tanya Williamson. Five more I don't know about.)

1995 - 4 (I found 2: Lisa Bardsley, and Linda Boom. Two more I don't know about.)

1994 - 10 (I found 7: Pamela Colson, Alerte Desanges, Jammie Garcia, Christine Mora, Sara Niebel, Magdalena Rodriguez, and Ingrid Thomas. Three more I don't know about.)

1993 - 6 (I found 4: Andrea Corey, Giselene Lafontant, Kathy McKnight, and Guadalupe Negron. Two more I don't know about.)

So there are 48 to 52 women whose abortion deaths during 1993-2002, and in 2005, haven't made internet news, whose deaths went unnoticed but for their loved ones and public health officials. Which means that we're not watching these abortion facilities closely enough. They're not being held accountable.

As for the CDC's count, I also found Shelby Moran who died in 1999, but I can't imagine that the CDC would be counting her because too much time passed between the abortion that left her incapacitated and her death in the nursing home where she'd been cared for. I expect the same for Venus Ortiz, who was left in a coma after her abortion and finally died in 1998. Though Angela Sanchez went to an openly opperating and apparently legal abortion clinic in 1993, her death will be counted as an illegal abortion because the woman passing herself off as a doctor was really the clinic owner. They won't count Brenda Vise because although it was abortion malpractice that caused her death, she had an ectopic pregnancy at the time, and the CDC started counting those separately in the mid-1970's. So that's four deaths I have that I know the CDC won't count.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Local MSM finally covering Laura Smith death

Eileen and Tom Smith had just sat down to watch the evening news when the received a call no parent ever wants to get. The woman on the other end of the line was hysterical. She said the Smiths' 22-year-old daughter, Laura, was in the emergency room at Cape Cod Hospital. The doctors were looking for next of kin. Mary Ann Bragg, "Parents search for clues in daughter's unexplained death", Cape Cod Times, October 21, 2007)

That call came on September 13, 2007. The hysterical woman on the phone was Laura's friend Karen, who had brought Laura that day to Women Health Clinic in Hyannis for an abortion.

Eileen and Tom hadn't even known that their daughter was pregnant.

Karen and Laura had arrived at the clinic in the morning for preparatory steps to abort Laura's 13-week baby. The two young women were to return in the afternoon for the actual procedure. Laura wasn't supposed to drive, so Karen drove and the two ran errands. Because Laura wasn't supposed to eat, Karen fasted with her friend.

They returned to the facility at about 4 in the afternoon and waited. Laura was called in at about 5, and Karen stepped out briefly, expecting her friend to be out of surgery in about fifteen minutes. But Laura didn't emerge from the bowels of the clinic. A worried Karen grew increasingly distressed.

And then all of a sudden [an assistant] comes out and says she's not breathing. And I was like, what do you mean she's not breathing," Karen told the Cape Cod Times.

Fire department rescuers were dispatched to the clinic at 5:49 p.m., and found an unresponsive patient. They initiated CPR and took her to the hospital. Karen followed, but was not permitted to see her friend. She asked about Laura's condition. "It doesn't look good," she was told. But Laura was already dead on arrival. It was 6:22 p.m.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Anniversary: Mentally disabled rape victim dies after care at National Abortion Federation clinic

Nineteen-year-old Diane Boyd lived in a Missouri state institution for the developmentally disabled. There, she was beaten and raped in July of 1981, and was later discovered to be pregnant.

An abortion was arranged for Diane at National Abortion Federation member Reproductive Health Services in St. Louis, and Diane's mother signed a consent form. The abortion was performed October 22, 1981. Diane died the next day.



According to suits later filed by Diane's mother, RHS staff and abortionist Robert Crist did not check for possible drug interactions before giving Diane valium and sublimaze. These drugs evidently reacted with Diane's usual medication, thorazine, causing her to stop breathing. Diane's mother said that the clinic lacked heart monitoring equipment or resuscitation equipment.

Diane was not the last woman to die after abortion by Crist. Seventeen-year-old Latatchie Veal bled to death after an abortion by Crist in 1991. Twenty-two-year-old Nichole Williams died of DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulopathy) after an abortion by Crist in 1997.

Fourteen-year-old Sandra Kaiser committed suicide after a 1984 abortion at RHS, performed without her mother's knowledge or consent.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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About those grave fetal abnormalities....

Babies aborted for minor disabilities:

MORE than 50 babies with club feet were aborted in just one area of England in a three-year period, according to new statistics.

Thirty-seven babies with cleft lips or palates and 26 with extra or webbed fingers or toes were also aborted.

The data have raised concerns about abortions being carried out for minor disabilities that could be cured by surgery.

Abortions are allowed up to birth in Britain in cases of serious handicap, but the law does not define what conditions should be considered grave enough to allow a termination late in the pregnancy. That is left to the discretion of doctors.

The Commons science and technology committee is carrying out an inquiry into whether the law should be made more specific.

Some parents, doctors and campaign groups are worried by what they see as a tendency to stretch the definition of serious handicap.

The justification the doctors give is that cleft lip or palate, or extra or webbed fingers or toes might (my emphasis) be indicative of other problems that can't be diagnosed in-utero. Better safe than sorry! Better to eliminate any number of babies with purely cosmetic problems (surgically correctable, I might add) than to let a more seriously affected baby live!

So, kids with webbed toes become collateral damage in the war on "defective" people. Another victory for the forces of tolerance and diversity!

Click here for the full breakdown. It's a catalog of what we as a society consider capital crimes when committed by the unborn. Including three babies aborted for external ear anomalies. And six for being intersex. Five for dwarfism. Twenty for Turner's syndrome. Three for Klinefelter's syndrome. One hundred and ninety-four for having Down syndrome. And fifty-two for "suggestion of underlying anomaly". I guess innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply to the possible crime of being sick or disabled.

HT: Verum Serum

The sad aborter

Abortion: Forty years of the woman's right to choose. The author gushes about the sanitary safety of legal abortion, the horrors of illegal abortion. But frankly, how can you unbrutalize something that even a supporter can document the brutality of?

Last Wednesday a Dispatches programme on Channel 4 showed shocking images of the remains of foetuses pulled or sucked from the womb in bits: long, slick trails of blood and jelly-like tissue containing a tiny foot here, or a hand with five translucent fingers there.

....

Dr John Spencer, senior clinical director for Marie Stopes, was quoted by Dispatches describing what it was like to abort a foetus that was much older and larger, when it could not be removed like this or even all in one piece. "The foetal parts are soft enough to break apart as they are being removed," he said. Using an ultrasound as guidance he was seen using forceps to pull out the body parts bit by bit, describing those which were too big. "Those parts are the skull and then the spine and pelvis and in fact they are crushed."

....

"The purpose of abortion is to bring about the demise of a foetus for the betterment of a woman's life."

And the woman -- is this what she really wants?

Helena's will is strong, yet as she talks her chin begins to wobble. Her eyes are watering. "You have mixed emotions," she says, as if talking about somebody else. "Your head is telling you that you just can't entertain the idea of being pregnant. Your heart is telling you it's an amazing thing to happen, the most important thing anyone can do in their life ..."

Her head won, then. Just. Was it close? "Uh-huh," she says quietly, and nods.

....

"I might as well tell you," she says, "since this is anonymous. This is not my first time." She had an abortion four years ago and it was later, a messier business. "The second time is harder, though," she says. "You are older and more aware of the missing piece in your life. Children can be that.

"I do want children, one day, and I dread the idea that by doing this I might somehow bring something dreadful on myself and it won't be possible. There are times when I feel, 'Wow this is a lovely feeling.' But I know that it can't last."

Helena rises and pulls on her coat. "Look, if I could I would have it, absolutely. I can't though. Financially, I would not feel in a position to do that."

Cramps have made it impossible to ignore what has been happening to her. "I do feel I have a relationship with ... I don't know what to call it. Definitely." That surprises her, she admits as she leaves, going back to a sofa, a hot chocolate and a favourite film. "I'm not sure what to think. It's not a person though because it has not formed enough and not taken on an identity," she says tentatively. "It's still special, though. It's still something. It's not nothing, is it?"

This doesn't sound like somebody who wanted her baby to die. It sounds like somebody who couldn't see past abortion, whose thinking got into a rut she couldn't pull out of. She doesn't see herself as capable of hitting the curve ball life has thrown at her, so she doesn't even swing. She just capitulates to her own sense of inadequacy.

Who is that a victory for?

Blog roundup

Here are the results of a straw poll of "values voters" and how the Republican candidates stood.

This cartoon nails it.

Should prolifers bail on the Republican party? I ditched them years ago because they were becoming indistinguishable from the Democrats on fiscal issues. They never call, they never write... ;)

The guy who tried to bomb a Houston abortion facility gets to spend 40 years rethinking his strategy. Earth to Evans: Making the agonizing choice to kill somebody whose presence disturbs you is prochoice, not prolife. Get a grip!

Another woman liberated and empowered through abortion. Sigh. How many abortions have their beginnings in destructive "romantic" relationships? And as Dr. Laura asked, "Is a woman just a wo- wo- wo- on a man?" Women with self respect don't get involved with losers like this guy. And they don't climb on the abortion table because theyr'e just too battered down by life. But how do you get to the core of the problem? Abortion won't fix it. But neither will just saying, "No abortion." This is where the CPCs win over abortion clinics hands-down. They're the only places I know of that will look at the train wreck somebody's made of her life and actually try to help her come up with a strategy for turning it around. And I think the 1:1 support and love are essential. But the trick is getting them in the door when the abortion lobby is filling their heads with lies, telling them that the people who really care are the ones who will take their money, kill their baby, and kick them out the door to sink or swim. End rant.

Election: McCain eloquent... but is he sincere?

Republican Presidential candidates addressed a pro-life forum, and John McCain made what was, to me, a very surprising statement:

“I have been pro-life my entire political career,’’ McCain said. “I believe I am the only major candidate in either party that can make that claim. I am pro-life because I know what it is like to live without human rights. That is a personal testament that you need not take on faith. You need only examine my public record to know that I will not change my position."

Hear him for yourself here.

I recall having originally liked McCain as a candidate last time he ran. I just thought that the integrity he showed while he was a POW spoke well for him. But then I learned -- or at least thought I did -- that he took a "prochoice" stand. So I rejected him as a candidate. If you're willing to throw unborn babies, disabled infants, people with severe brain injuries, etc., under the bus, to me that just disqualifies you. Unless you want to law to protect every innocent person, I don't think you're fit for public office.

I'm guessing that my rejection (Remember, I rejected a lot of candidates! I can't remember the specifics of what disqualified each and every one.) came from McCain's support of public funding for dangerous, unethical, and just ghoulish destruction of human embryos for stem-cell research.

So -- can prolifers get behind this guy or not?

Coming around, slowly

The latest CBS News poll found the following breakdown on when Americans want abortion to be legal:

4% - Under no circumstances

16% - To save the mother's life

34% - Rape, incest, lfe of the mother

16% - In all cases, but with more restrictions

26% - In all cases

Just to clarify for those of you who don't understand, opposing granting legal statud to "life of the mother" abortions doesn't mean that you want doctors prosecuted for good-faith abortions necessary to prevent the mother's death. It just means that you don't want there to be a legal loophole that unscrupulous abortionists take advantage of. A more thorough explanation is here.

Along with the falling abortion rate, this is a good sign. It means only about a quarter of Americans approve of the status quo. But we still have a long way to go. The goal isn't to do with abortion what prohibition did with alcohol -- drive it underground. The goal is to do what the abolitionsists did with slavery -- make it unthinkable.

We're getting there.

We could surely unify on this!

Bush lovers, Bush haters, and those of us with mixed opinions about the guy ought to all be getting behind the President's Malaria Initiative.

Anybody who has followed my blogs for long knows I'll periodically spout off about how little is being done to address this needless, deadly scourge. Well, you can pick your favorite charity and donate!

Today's searches

Somebody was searcing for "twilight sedation abortion". I have the following cases on file:

The newsletter Feminist Voices slammed the Bread & Roses abortion mill, and owner Aleksander Jakubowski. Ex-employees who spoke to Feminist Voices also alleged that Jakubowski had then "push" twilight sleep on patients at $60 a dose, sometimes threatening to send a woman home if she refused.

Abortionist Steve Brigham performed the botched abortion on "Millie" under twilight sedation.

The ill-trained staff at Maryland's Hillview abortion facility were supposedly trying to induce twilight sleep on Debra Gray when they put her under for her fatal abortion.

A disgruntled staffer at Planned Parenthood of Central and Northern Arizona complained that a new doctor was using twilight anesthesia though the clinic had no protocols for using it.

Somebody wanted information on 22 week fetus.

Before: Illustration: "SIZE: weight about 12.25 ounces (350g). Crown-to-rump length at this time is about 7.6 inches (19cm). .... Bones of the ear - hammer, anvil and stirrup - harden, making sound conduction possible. Fetus recognizes maternal sounds such as breathing, heartbeat, voice, and digestion. .... Respiratory system continues to develop; lungs are not yet able to transfer oxygen to bloodstream and release carbon dioxide by exhaling."

During: Illustration photo showing removal of head.

After: induction, D&E

Somebody else wanted "20 week abortion". The pictures above are close enough as far as the fetus goes. As for the mothers:

"Vicki" was 20 weeks pregnant when she underwent a fatal aboriton.

"Francine" was 20 weeks pregnant when she endured a botched abortion at Eastern Women's Center.

Margot" thought she was less than 12 weeks pregnant, but her baby turned out to be 20 weeks along.

C.J. LaBenz initiated what he thought was a 20-week abortion, but the patient gave birth to a live 27-week baby that was left unattended in a dirty utility room until he died.

Gail Wright died of sepsis from her 20-week abortion.

"Malorie" was 20 weeks pregnant when she underwent her fatal saline abortion.

Mary Bradley was 20 weeks pregnant when she underwent her fatal legal abortion.

David Benjamin fatally injured Guadalupe Negron trying to abort her 20 week fetus.

Other 20-week abortion fatalities include "Brenda", "Barbara", Sharon Hamplton, Lisa Bardsley, and "Colleen".

Somebody else wanted "abortion mill stories". Welcome to my blog. That's pretty much what I do. Check in daily.

Rosie Jimenez, the woman who saved $10 by picking an illegal abortion over one at Planned Parenthood, remains a popular search.

Christina Goesswein, one of the many victims of Moshe Hachamovitch was a popular search as well.

Anniversary: Carpetbagging legal abortionist kills second patient in four months

Carole Schaner was 37 years old when she traveled from Ohio to Buffalo, New York, for a safe and legal abortion. Dr. Jesse Ketchum performed a vaginal hysterotomy abortion on October 20, 1971. Carole was 14 weeks pregnant.

After the abortion, Carole went into shock, and was taken to a hospital. She was in shock when she arrived. Despite all efforts, Carole died before doctors could even fully asssess the extent of her injuries. She left behind four children.

The autopsy found that Carole's cervix and uterus had been cut open, and an artery outside her uterus had been cut. It also noted sutures that had evidently been put in by Ketchum in an attempt to repair the damage. The sutures, however, completely closed Carole's cervix, allowing her to continue bleeding from the injured uterus and artery.

Carole was the second woman to bleed to death after an outpatient hystertomy abortion performed by Ketchum; Margaret Smith had died four months earlier.

Another former criminal abortionist, Milan Vuitch also had kept his nose clean as a criminal abortionist, then went on to kill two legal abortion patients. Wilma Harris and Georgianna English both died under Vuitch's care. Likewise Benamin Munson had a clean record of a criminal abortion but went on to kill two women -- Linda Padfield and Yvonne Mesteth -- after legalization.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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History: Criminal anniversary from 1877

On October 20, 1877, Nellie Ryan, an unmarried 21-year-old white woman from Turner Junction, Illinois, died in Chicago during a criminal abortion. Midwife Amelia Spork was arrested for Nellie's death.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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NARAL's panties in a twist. Here's a suggestion.

I am on the email list for NARAL Pro-Choice (sic) America, and they've got their panties all in a twist because on Halloween, Congress is gonna decide if we can go back to giving US tax dollars to organizations that push abortion in other countires. And, of course, they expect that even if Congress does go for the funding, Bush will of course veto it, so they want your congresscritter girded to override the veto.

Ya know, it's kind of ironic that organizations filled with people who sport buttons saying "End US Involvement in Women's Wombs" are all wanting to fund US involvement in women's wombs -- even if it's totally against the wishes of the women in question.

Now of course, according to the email, the best way to "restore vital reproductive health care to" (i.e. throw lots of pills and condoms at) poor women around the world is to send NARAL money.

I'd like to point out that even if, like NARAL, you're an enthusiastic fan of treating the word's poor and oppressed people like so many stray cats to be spayed and neutered, you don't have to fork over your hard-earned cash to NARAL to tell your congresscritter. You can email him or her right here.

Personally I'd recomend that you tell your congresscritter to keep our tax money out of poor people's crotches. But you may beg to differ. Either way, you can eliminate the middle man, then do something else with the money NARAL wants you to send. You can provide real help and health care to poor women (and children and men) through Mercy Ships.

NARAL is asking for certain amounts. I'll suggest what you might send directly to the poor women of the world instead:

$35: For just $25, you can provide a "New Life Kit" to a woman Mercy Ships has treated for her obstetric fistula. Or you can provide the thorough eye exam that is the first step toward restroring sight to a blind woman, man, or child.

$50: Provide vital dental care to a desperately poor child. Just $45 will provide agricultural training to help a family gain the life-sustaining, healtful benefits of enough to eat. And that person can pass his or her training on to the entire community.

$75: Can provide a "New Life Kit", and an thorough eye exam, and bandages for surgery patients

$100: Provide a case of surgical gowns for the surgeons who are underwriting their own volunteer work, providing life-changing, often life-saving, surgery to the poorest of the poor.

Other: $200 will keep a ship's engines running for an hour, allowing Mercy Ships to reach people in need. $360 will underwrite surgery for a suffering woman, child, or man. $3,000 (not that much if you're well-to-do, or a modest fundraising project for a small church or club) will provide safe drinking water to a village. Or, if you're rich, or if you're part of a church or club or civic organization looking to make a difference, you can donate $10,000 to underwrite the cost of a tray of surgical instruments to provide cataract operations and restore sight.

These are just a few things that I think would be a far more fruitful use of money than to send it to NARAL to underwrite their PR campaigns. (And don't take my word for it that these "family planning funds" are doing harm to poor people. Read Betsy Hartmann's excellent book, Reproductive Rights and Wrongs. Hartmann is adamantly prochoice so you can't dismiss her research as so much antichoice agitprop.)

Betty Ladel, Illegal Abortion Death

Sylvia Redman, who had a license to practice naturopathy, signed a written confession on October 20, 1954 regarding the death of Betty Ladel. Redman said that Betty came to her on October 8, saying that she thought she was pregnant. Her period was about a week late. Redman said Betty asked her "if I could help her get rid of the baby. I told her the danger of everything and she said she was not afraid. I told her I would rather her to go somewhere else and have the baby stopped in twenty four hours, because my work is slow. I do it by shooting a little air up into the womb. (uterus) By going through the cervix into the uterus, where the embryo is carried. She told me she wanted me to do it."

Redman said that she used a speculum and syringe to shoot some air into Betty's uterus, though she wasn't really sure if Betty was pregnant. She told Betty to return every other day. Each time Betty returned, Redman shot a little more air into her utuers, asking her if she felt anything. Sometimes Betty responded in the affirmative, sometimes not.

On October 19, Betty again went to Redman, who took uer upstairs, "laid her on a table used for females," and inserted a canula into Betty's uterus. She pushed five syringes full of air into Betty's uterus and asked Betty if she could feel it. Betty said that she could, a little. "And she looked up at me and said I feel choky, and then she passed out."

Redman said, "I used artificial respiration. I picked her up in my arms and laid her on the floor. And I slung water at her to try to revive her, and then I had a lady downstairs to call an ambulance. The ambulance came and got her and took her to Harris Hospital. After this happened I called a friend and asked her what to do and she said throw all that stuff away. So I went upstairs to get the instruments that I had used, and I had just come downstairs when Mr. Howerton and Mr. Armstrong and another detective walked in. I told them I'd be with them in a minute and I kinda hid the instruments that I had used on Betty Ladel behind me, and I stepped into the back and put the instruments in a garbage can. Then I came back out to talk to Mr. Howerton and I admitted to him what I had done and he asked me what I had used on Betty Ladel, and I took him out (to) the garbage can and showed him exactly where I had hidden them and what I had used. He asked me if I had performed an abortion on her and I told him no, but I wasn't telling him the truth. And I gave these instruments to Mr. Howerton and Mr. Armstrong and the other detective. After she had told me that she felt choky, and after I laid her on the floor, I noticed she was bleeding from the vagina."

An autopsy verified that Betty had indeed been pregnant, and blamed her death on the introduction of air into her uterus to produce abortion. The six or seven week old embryo was entact and undamaged. Betty's blood vessels had air in them, and she had died from an air embolism.

The testimony of the authorities who investigated the case supports the confession. The police indicated that upon questioning, Redman showed them the table she'd used and retrieved the instruments from a garbage can.

Redman was convicted of murder by attempted abortion, and was sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary for four years.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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Safe legal anniversary: One of Hachamovitch's many deaths

19-year-old Christina Goesswein, ("Patient A" in medical board documents) was almost 23 weeks pregnant when she went to the office of Dr. Braz Bortot to get an abortion. Dr. Bortot referred her to Dr. Moshe Hachamovitch in Bronx, New York.

Christina went to the office of Dr. Hachamovitch on October 17, 1990, and the first part of the three-day abortion procedure was started that day. She was sent home and told to return the following day to have her cervix dilated even further for the abortion, which would take place on the 19th.

She came back on the 18th and had more laminaria inserted then returned home. That evening, her boyfriend called the doctor’s office because Christina was having cramping. He was told to give her pain medicine.

Christina's boyfriend called again several hours later because he felt that she was running a fever, but Christina told Dr. Hachamovitch’s employee who was taking call that evening that she was okay.

Early in the morning of the 19th, the boyfriend called the employee again because Christina was experiencing heavy bleeding, cramping and vomiting. Christina stated that she felt that she was in labor. The employee instructed Christina to go to the doctor’s office where she and the doctor would meet her.

They all met at the office some time between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. After arriving at the office, Christina lost control of her bowels. Hachamovitch then delivered her 24-week fetus in one piece.

Because Christina was not recovering as she should have, Dr. Hachamovitch decided to admit her to an area hospital, but before this could be done, Christina quit breathing and her heart stopped.

Somebody called 911 at about 4:20 a.m., and Dr. Hachamovitch began CPR. Christina was taken to a Bronx hospital where she was pronounced dead at 6:11 a.m. on October 19, due to an amniotic fluid embolism.

Hachamovitch's license was suspended over his false documentation regarding administration of oxygen, and Christina's blood loss.

In its documents, the medical board notes that Hachamovitch failed to record "identity of the individual who performed and interpreted a sonogram of Patient A;" "failed to record the size and type of laminaria;" "failed to properly address the possibility that Patient A might require emergency medical care near her home in the course of the two days between the insertion of laminaria on October 17 and the scheduled performance of an abortion on October 19;" "made no effort to provide for more local and immediate medical care for Patient A at or about 3:05 a.m. on October 19, when he learned that Patient A was experiencing heavy bleeding, vomiting and severe cramps."

The board faulted Hachamovitch for doing an abortion "in the face of heavy bleeding, severe cramps and vomiting and involuntary bowel movements." "Respondent failed to arrange for Patient A to be taken to a hospital before performing any procedure on her so that her condition could be properly managed;" "performed the abortion and D&E without proper monitoring and resuscitative equipment;" "failed to adequately prepare the patient for foreseeable complications;" "failed to have a licensed physician or certified nurse anesthetist present during the surgery'" "inappropriately sedated Patient A."

"Once Patient A went into cardiopulmonary arrest Respondent failed to properly attempt her resuscitation." The board also found fault with Hachamovitch because he did not "describe adequately the procedure used to terminate the pregnancy;" "failed to perform and/or record the findings of a gross examination of Patient A's uterine contents immediately post-abortion;" "intentionally represented in his record for patient A that she received continuous oxygen by mask despite knowing that this was untrue;" "intentionally represented in his record that Patient A had no bleeding at all despite knowing that this was untrue."

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Researching criminal abortionists

I've been tidying up my pages over at RealChoice, particularly the page on Abortionists of the 20th Century. As I added the link for Anna Johnson to my entry about Eva Shaver, I was reminded that she'd also been implicated in the death of a woman in 1914. So I hopped over to the Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database to track down more information.

I found a few details on the woman who died in 1914. Her name was Lillie Giovenco, she was 18 years old, and she lingered for nearly a month before dying. Two other doctors -- Leopold Pijan and John Fernow -- were also fingered by the coroner in Lillie's death.

The name of Leopold Pijan is familiar to me because it's similar to the name of a man identified as a "scrub nurse" and convicted of the 1955 abortion death of Jacqueline Smith in New York: Leobaldo Pejuan.

Now, Leopold and Leopoldo aren't exactly your everyday names. Ditto for Pejuan and Pijan.

The spelling of names on the Homicide in Chicago database can also be off, because the database took information from handwritten records. Illegibility of the original handwriting could easily lead to misspellings. I've seen names spelled different ways on a single page of the database.

So I'm wondering if the Dr. Leopold Pijan from Chicago, having lost his license for the death of Lillie Giovenco, went to New York and got work as a scrub nurse that allowed him to continue to ply his abortion trade. If he was a young man when Lillie died, it's not unreasonable for him to still be in practice as an abortionist forty years later.

Does anybody know? This is the second time I've asked, but it never hurts to ask again.

Recent searches

Christin Gilbert (pictured) is the 19-year-old girl with Down Syndrome that died after a safe, legal, "medically necessary" third trimester abortion at George "Teflon" Tiller's Wichita late-abortion mill.

Somebody wanted to know the size of a 20-week fetus. "The crown-to-rump length 5.6 to 6.4 inches (14 to 16cm)."

Colby Weaver is the researcher at Find-a-Grave that led me to the deaths of Katherine Cross and Elise Stone.

Somebody else wanted information on anesthesia deaths. The ones I know related to abortion are here.

Vivian Tran died in 2003 after an RU-486 abortion at a Planned Parenthood in California.

Somebody wanted information on stem cell success in spinal cord injury. I blogged recently about success in Russia, Ecuador, and Portugal. I also understand that there's success in China.

Laura Hope Smith died last month after a safe and legal abortion in Massachusetts.

Somebody wanted abortion in the 1940s. I have these deaths.

Rosie Jimenez is the woman who saved ten bucks by going to an illegal abortionist instead of to Planned Parenthood in 1977. The abortion lobby uses her to try to restore federal funding for elective abortions, despite the fact that the CDC's own study, "The Effect of Restricting Public Funds for Legal Abortion," found "no evidence of a statistically significant increase in the number of complications from illegal abortions." In fact, they found that while there was no change in the illegal abortion complications, there was a significant decrease in publicly funded hospitalizations for legal abortion complications in cities where funding was restricted, compared to cities in areas where state or local government picked up the tab for elective abortions. In other words, cutting funds for elective abortions actually had a measurable positive impact on abortion complication rates for Medicaid-eligible women. But why let facts get in the way?

Guadalupe Negron died in 1993 after an abortion in a seedy New York City abortion mill.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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More on last month's Massachusetts abortion death

More information about the death of Laura Smith is available from National Catholic Register.

HT: Threshing Grain

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Legalization as a panacea

Department of awful statistics (HT: JJ)

Prochoicer Megan McArdle looks at the recent lame claims that abortion's legal status has no impact whatsoever on its frequency, just on its safety:

I can't see the Lancet study, which is gated. But the summary does not back up this claim. The study says that abortions are generally high in the developing world, where it is usually illegal, and low in the developed world, where it is usually legal. It also tells you that abortion is relatively unsafe in the developing world.

But it seems mad to extrapolate this to a blanket statement such as "Law does not influence a woman's decision to have an abortion." For one thing, we know of cases where the law absolutely and indisputably did exert such an influence, such as Communist Romania, where abortion bans caused the birth rate to soar. For another, societies where abortion is illegal are probably different from societies where abortion is legal in other ways, such as attitudes towards birth control. Also, enforcement of laws varies even when the laws don't (abortion was technically illegal in Germany for most of the post-war period). And finally, since the variation is almost entirely among developed countries where access to birth control may be spotty for economic, political or social reasons, this would not necessarily tell us much about developed nations. As I understand it, most abortions in America are obtained by women who have had more than one abortion, which seems to indicate that for at least some segment of the population abortion is a substitute for birth control, rather than birth.

Similarly, saying that "making abortion illegal doesn't reduce its incidence, but only makes it more dangerous" is nonsense on stilts when the comparison is largely between developed countries with legal abortion, and developing countries with illegal abortion. Having an abortion in Burundi would be more dangerous than having one in America even if their government legalized the procedure, made it free, and awarded a medal and a complimentary fruit basket to every woman who had one. I am pretty sure that abortion, like almost every other activity, gets more dangerous when it is legally prohibited. But from what I can make out, this study doesn't do a good job of demonstrating that truism.

Cross-country comparisons--what statisticians call latitudinal studies--are fraught with difficulty because of all the differences in law, enforcement, data collection, social norms, political culture, health care systems, and so forth. That's why it's important to also look at longitudinal studies--studies that examine the same place over time. And all the reputable studies I'm aware of, which to be sure are not an exhaustive list, show pretty much the expected result: if you legalize abortion, you get more of it.

Well said.

I also have to say that I think that the safety impact of legalization on the individual woman is gonna be pretty spotty. Yeah, it may make it possible for Susie to go to a nice, clean clinic run by Charlotte Taft. But it may also land Margaret and Carole at a fly-by-night run by Jesse Ketchum, or Wilma and Jeannie at a mill run by Milan Vuitch, or Linda and Yvonne at Benjamin Munson's office. All three of these guys had clean records as criminal abortionists, then got sloppy once legalization banished the fear of going to prison.

So on a case-by-case basis, I'd say that some women would end up with access to abortions that are actually safer than had their abortions been illegal. But others, such as Carole and Margaret, end up with abortions that are actually less safe because their abortionists take chances they'd never have dared had there been the specter of prosecution hanging over their heads.

What we do know for sure is that legalization drives the numbers up, meaning more women are exposed to the risks. Carl Tyler of the Centers for Disease Control and an avid abortion advocate, testified before Congress in the early 1970s, asking for nationwide legalization of abortion-on-demand as a public health measure that he was sure would "eliminate child abuse in a single generation." When quizzed about the expected impact on women, Tyler postulated that the safety of the procedure would increase somewhat for the individual patient, but the number of women exposed to the risk would skyrocket. He estimated that 200 additional women would lose their lives each year. But, Tyler asserted, the total elimination of child abuse was worth the cost in women's lives.

So what actually did happen with legalization? We can see that the abortion mortality trends didn't change much, as evidenced in this chart from the National Center for Health Statistics:



How accurate were their numbers? Pretty good, judging by studies done in California, Minnesota, and Tennessee, in which researchers turned over every rock they could think of to uncover maternal deaths from illegal abortions. Up until Willard Cates and David Grimes left the abortion surveillance area of the Centers for Disease Control in the mid-1970's, public health officials beat the bushes for data on abortion mortality. They contacted public health officials, hospitals, police, funeral directors, ob/gyns, and family doctors, asking if they knew of any suspicious deaths. People who didn't respond got a follow-up letter.

But when Cates and Grimes left (I last noticed them in 1976, but all my Abortion Surveillance Summaries are back home in the states so I'm going from memory here.), what happened? The numbers fell, got erratic, then leveled off:



Let's look at the actual numbers, shall we? You can click below to enlarge this chart from the Centers for Disease Control 2003 Abortion Surveillance Report, the most recent one I could find:



The numbers for illegal abortions were falling, as the numbers for legal abortions were climbing, leaving the total death toll on the same slow, steady downward trend it had been on since 1960 -- seven years before the first states started legalizing abortions for social reasons.

It's hard to credit legalization with a downward trend that had been in place -- except for a brief and inexplicable leveling-off in the 1950s -- for the previous thirty years and more. And the biggest drop after Roe doesn't come until 1976 -- when the CDC changed its data collection technique from an active one (sending out letters and follow-up letters in addition to collecting data sent in to the National Center for Health Statistics) to a passive one (making due with what the NCHS spit their way).

Crediting legalization with the fall in abortion deaths makes no sense, since absolutely nothing changed in the overall trends with legalization. One might with more statistical credibility attribute the fall to my birth in 1961, which at least coincides with the actual mortality drop.

As for what to do about women in developing nations, I'd say that the best thing we could do for them is what we did for ourselves: build an infrastructure that supplies sanitation, clean water, and healthful foods. It's inexcusable to pretend that changing the legal status of abortion will provide these women with basic good health, sanitary medical facilities, and they so desperately need.

Two illegal anniversaries, docs implicated

On October 18, 1939, Miss Alice Corbett, age 28, of Brooklyn, New York, died from complications of an illegal abortion. Dr. Allen F. Murphy was sentenced to 2-10 years in Sing-Sing for Alice's death.

On October 18, 1942, 23-year-old Harriet Lichtenberg of Brooklyn died in Royal Hospital, the Bronx, from suspected criminal abortion complications. Dr. Henry Katz was indicted for first degree manslaughter in Harriet's death.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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New page for old mill

I noticed that there had been a lot of deaths at Chicago's notorious Biogenetics abortion mill, but that I'd never gathered all the dirt about this place together in one spot. Well, here it is.

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

The Planned Parenthood in Overland Park is being charged with performing illegal late abortions, among other charges:

Planned Parenthood's Overland Park, Kan., clinic was charged Wednesday with 107 counts, including accusations that it provided unlawful late-term abortions.

Johnson County prosecutor Phill Kline charged the clinic with 23 felony counts and 84 misdemeanor counts, according to court records. Besides 29 misdemeanor counts of providing unlawful late-term abortions, the clinic is charged with multiple counts of making a false writing, failure to maintain records and failure to determine viability.

Here's where having a good memory helps:

"I've heard nothing at all about specific charges that have been filed," Brownlie said in a telephone interview. "We always provide high-quality care in full accord with state and federal law."

As for allegations that Planned Parenthood performed illegal late-term abortions, Brownlie said its clinic doesn't perform any past the 22nd week of pregnancy.

Now for the lies:

1. "We always provide high-quality care" Right. Which is why you have Robert Crist working for you. The family didn't file suit after he let Nichole Williams die under his tender ministrations, so I don't know what sort of thing he might have done wrong there. But the two other dead patients I know of don't speak well for his attentiveness or skill. Diane Boyd, a 19-year-old mentally-challenged rape victim, was brought to Crist by her mother. Crist didn't bother to review her medications before doping her up for the abortion. The drugs he gave her interacted with her maintenance drugs, causing her to go into respiratory arrest. Since Crist had no apparent qualms about working at a place without proper resuscitation equipment, Diane was inadequately resuscitated and died. Seventeen-year-old Latachie Veal he simply sent home to bleed to death. Granted, he didn't perform these three fatal abortions at Planned Parenthood's Overland Park location -- Diane and Nichole were aborted at Reproductive Health Services, which PP took over management of at some point, and Latachie was aborted in Texas at a National Abortion Federation member facility not affiliated with Planned Parenthood. But it doesn't speak well for them that they'd have this guy doing abortions for them.

2. They don't do abortions past 22 weeks. Ha! Remember when an independent contractor came to Life Dynamics, confessing that he'd been helping to gut babies as big as 32 weeks to harvest their organs for medical research? The "clinic" in question was the Planned Parenthood in Overland Park, Kansas.

Misdiagnosis search

Somebody found my blog by searching for "misdiagnosed deformities resulting in elective abortion".

I'll divide the instances I know of into three catagories, based on what the societal drive to eliminate unsatisfactory fetuses costs the woman in question, ranging from needless distress through the needless death of her baby to the needless loss of her life. Since these losses are cumulative, I'll start with those who just suffer needless distress: those who are pushed to abort for a supposed feal abnormality, who manage to at least escape the more dire fates of their sisters, and who end up with a baby to love after all. This post will deal with women who were urged to abort, but who held firm.

Stephanie was told that her unborn baby had multiple abnormalities. One medical staffer actually tried to simply make an abortion appointment on her behalf. She got one false diagnosis after another, one recommendation for abortion after the other. The joy of her pregnancy was turned to stress and anxiety, and all for naught: Her baby was born with a bit of an enlarged head, but everything turned out to be fine.

Nancy was told that her baby had severe chromosomal abnormalities, incompatable with life. Her doctor urged her to arrange an abortion, even though she was 26 weeks pregnant. Devastated by the news, Nancy nevertheless did some research and rejected abortion, whereupon her doctor increased the pressure on her. Nancy stood firm, and gave birth to a normal baby.

Sandi was told that her baby had a fatal form of dwarfism. When she refused abortion, her obstetrician refused to care for her any longer. The treatment team she ended up with met with her regularly to again try to persuade her to abort. Though her baby was small and born a bit early, she had no major health issues at all and is a healthy little girl.

Carolyn was told that her baby had a 99% chance of dying in-utero and was urged to abort. Her daugher is a healty, normal little girl.

This article notes many women urged to abort, mostly for false or exaggeratedly grim maternal diagnoses. However, Case #5 is of a woman who was told she was infected with the cytomegalovirus, which could cross the placenta and harm the unborn child. She was urged to abort, and actually went as far as to make an appointment. A physician who was her neighbor learned of her situation and referred her to another doctor, who was able to give her a more realistic assessment of the risk that her baby had been harmed by the virus, and if so, how seriously. She decided to continue the pregnancy, and gave birth to a healthy little boy.

Laura was told that her unborn baby had died. She rebuffed the doctor's attempt to "emtpy her uterus", and ended up giving birth to a robust little boy.

Annette was urged to abort a baby she was told had severe spina bifada. She refused an abortion and gave birth to a healthy little girl.

Here is a collection of stories collected from Usenet groups.

Illegal anniversary, doctor blamed

On October 5, 1927, 31-year-old Auna Arola underwent a criminal abortion in Chicago. She died on October 17. On October 29, Dr. Vincent Tonavena was arrested. He was indicted for felony murder on November 1.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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About that three percent...

Since the brouhaha in Aurora, Planned Parenthood has been whining that "only 3%" of its "services" are abortions. And some critics have pondered, "Three precent counted how? Three precent of expenditures? Three precent of clients? Three precent of billable items? I've suspected the latter.

And now (Cue drum roll.), from Charlotte Allen of the Weekly Standard:

One way Planned Parenthood massages the numbers to make its abortion business look trivial is to unbundle its services for purposes of counting. Those 10.1 million different medical procedures in the last fiscal year, for instance, were administered to only 3 million clients. An abortion is invariably preceded by a pregnancy test--a separate service in Planned Parenthood's reckoning--and is almost always followed at the organization's clinics by a "going home" packet of contraceptives, which counts as another separate service. Throw in a pelvic exam and a lab test for STDs--you get the picture. In terms of absolute numbers of clients, one in three visited Planned Parenthood for a pregnancy test, and of those, a little under one in three had a Planned Parenthood abortion.

Way to go, PP. Screwtape chuckles at the marvel of his handiwork.

Zooming in on the perp

I have new evidence that "Wanda" Roe, a recent chemical abortion death, probably died in 2006.

Weekly Standard says that the two most recent Planned Parenthood RU-486 deaths took place "last year" in an article published just this month.

Since odds are that Wanda is one of those deaths, Wanda likely died in 2006.

If we stay alert, we may be able to figure out who killed this woman and hold them accountable.

And you'd think this is an area where prolife and prochoice can be united.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Another queasy prochoice Brit

Brutal truth of DIY abortion

Here, in India Knight, we have a woman who thinks abortion "needs to be legal and freely available", but she clearly sees a callousness in the way women are treated by those supposedly supporting their rights, lives, health, and dignity:

[I]f said men found themselves in need of an emergency abortion, I don’t expect their doctors would chuck some kind of horror-pill at them and tell them to go home and sit on the loo until the foetus was expelled. And yet government advisers are, as we speak, paving the way to make DIY abortions “easier” for women. I like “easier”. It’s a bit like the NHS providing penknives and Savlon to anyone who fancies a caesarean, or who can’t quite face the queue for a mastectomy.

She looks at how things are now in the UK, and the direction abortion supporters want to move:

Currently, if you take an abortion pill – two pills, actually: mifepristone, which detaches the foetus from the womb, followed by misoprostol, which induces miscarriage – you are given both in hospital. If the law is changed, the second pill will be made available as a takeaway, so that you can stagger away cramping and finish the job in your own bathroom.

In other words, they're gonna imitate the Americans.

Ms. Knight ponders what this means:

Now, think what you like about abortion – I’m not keen, as it happens, though I do see that it needs to be legal and freely available – but surely chucking pills at women and expecting them to go home, cramp and bleed until the thing is done and then – what? Flush the loo? – is a brutality too far. It is, obviously, an act of brutality towards the foetus (which I would call the baby, hence my issue with this whole subject) but, my goodness, it is also an act of supreme brutality towards the woman.

Ms. Knight points out that a lot of women find abortion unexpectedly distressing as it's currently practiced in the UK, with the fetal remains being whisked away unseen and uncontemplated:

Get drunk with a gaggle of girlfriends and talk about children, and there are always one or two who’ll slur something like, “I’d have a 20-year-old by now”, or, “It meant absolutely nothing at time, but it does now”, or, “If I’d known how hard I’d find getting pregnant again . . .”

In closing, Ms. Knight imagines what it must be like:

Forget the fact that the abortion pill is “safe” and “effective”, and rather imagine the mother of four who simply can’t contemplate another child. She’s been to the clinic and taken her first pill, and she doesn’t feel great. She supervises the homework, puts another batch of laundry on, sorts the children’s tea, bathtime, bedtime, then she swallows the second pill and goes to her bathroom.

I mean, if that woman was your worst enemy, you’d break into her house to rescue her, or at least hold her hand. And in the morning she’s expected to get up as though nothing had happened and get on with life, with nary a look back at the lavatory pan. I know we’re “copers”, but this is ridiculous. It is also completely obscene.

HT Wheat & Weeds, who frames it very well and adds more information. So don't just rest happy with my comments and/or the article itself. Go read what Wheat & Weeds has to say.

Irony Alert

CodePink, a SanFrancisco leftist anti-war/pro-abortion group, chalked an ironic sentiment on the sidewalk outside a Marine Corps recruiting office:



(Photo: Zombie Time)

"Killing children doesn't defend my freedom" is an odd sentiment from somebody who holds that abortion -- which is, after all, killing children -- is the lynchpin of her freedom.

Hey, CodePink chick -- if you're so opposed to killing children, open a CPC and do something to fight the slaughter of children right at home. It might be a refreshing change for you.

Healing after "therapeutic" abortion

Poor Pre-Natal Diagnosis: resources for coping after abortion. A retreat will be held Sat. Nov. 24, 2007, 9:30 am to 5 pm, Bronx, NY.

HT: After Abortion

Cui bono?

On October 2, 1923, 16-year-old Lauretta Schranz underwent a criminal abortion somewhere in Chicago. On October 16, Lauretta died at Chicago Hospital from complications of that abortion. Ethel Davis and Lena Rumenstein were held by the coroner in Lauretta's death. Davis was indicted by a grand jury for felony murder on November 15.

Fast-forward 51 years. Maria Lira, age 19, was a college student when she went to Riveria Hospital on October 14, 1974, to undergo an abortion. After she'd been discharged, Maria had problems and returned. Staff perfromed a D&C, then discharged her again. That night, she went to the emergency room due to excessive bleeding. She was sent to Torrance Memorial Hospital for treatment. Maria died at Torrance Memorial on October 16. The autopsy found a decomposing fetus in her uterus, which had caused infection and DIC (disseminated intravacsular coagulopahty). The DIC prevented clotting, causing the hemorrhage that killed Maria.

We need to ask: Who benefitted from the legalization of abortion? Maria Lira? Or her doctor, who didn't have to fear going to prison?


For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Storming the gates of Hell

HT: Causa Nostrae

40 Days for Life. I'll post a few snippets verbatim:

EL PASO, TEXAS: We are able to confirm 12 babies lives saved.

MARTIN COUNTY, FLORIDA: A young man and girl came up to me with tears in their eyes (They looked 16 or 17). They described how they had decided to abort their 5 month pregnancy. They saw our signs (one with a pregnancy care center and number.) They went and had a ultrasound and discovered that it was a girl. They decided at that time to keep the baby. They wanted us to know, and their words were, “Thanks for being here.”

MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY: In 20 days, we’ve grown to 8 vigil sites in 6 counties, and expect to keep on adding two or three more each week. Several saves have been reported from two of our sites where traffic is sufficient to permit that, and the human interest stories abound. Another site was manned by a loner who persisted for three long years before being joined by a local doctor, and the group now numbers 8 to 10 faithful witnesses for life.

WACO, TEXAS: One family, involved in a ministry with incarcerated youth, has the young men saying a daily prayer for life. Another deacon, working in a women’s’ state jail, has at least 65 women praying the rosary and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy to end abortion.

TRI-CITY, MICHIGAN: One seasoned pro life advocated has been praying on site at our local abortion mill for many years. Last Saturday, Oct. 13th, Dave said he has heard of more “saves” in the last few days than in the last 6 months combined.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK: We have continued to turn around on average 2 or 3 moms from a certain abortion per day, mostly in the South Bronx. Three former abortion clinic workers, discovered us on the sidewalks (1 in the Bronx, 2 in Queens) and expressed deep regrets for their past misdeeds and two will be joining us in our work for Life. We have been able to bring out a brand new batch of ministers, and lay people, mostly new immigrants, mostly Hispanics, especially in Queens, and signed up hundreds for future outreach and sidewalk counseling.

FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA: Not only have babies been saved, not only is the body of Christ responding time and time again, not only are WE being changed BUT God is bringing people to us off the streets that need ministering. Some of our people are going out every single day and every single night. We are ministering not only to the abortion-minded individuals but to many of the walking wounded that need to share their story. We had no surgical abortions this past week in Fargo that we know of.

GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA: We talked to one woman who changed her mind and chose life for herself and for her child. We talk to the abortionist and workers and are praying to get them new jobs and pray they talk to a former abortionist about getting out. Our community is growing in love with our God and with each other and in our commitment to serve our neighbors.

SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA: We are creating public awareness that abortions are being performed at our Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls. Many people in South Dakota are not aware of Planned Parenthood’s role. Also on our second Saturday morning after the start of the 40 days we had several new ladies join us that were post-abortive.

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA: I personally have ministered to two post-abortive fathers and two other post-abortive women.

BUFFALO, NEW YORK: On day 2 the abortion mill’s drains all clogged up and halted the killing for 6 STRAIGHT DAYS.

CENTRAL TEXAS: Liz was on the sidewalk by herself praying last Tuesday and a lady went into the abortion clinic. She had 2 young children, I believe 4 and 7ish. Apparently, the man who she is staying with doesn’t want the expense of another child and she is not employed so he wants her to have an abortion. She went over to speak with Liz who listened to her story and got her phone number which she passed on to me and I passed onto a counselor at Hope Pregnancy Center. She called the woman and the next day she went to the Hope Pregnancy Center for help. She is keeping the child and Hope is assisting her. Praise God.

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA: Our key victories have been 48 babies that have been saved and one of the abortion worker/provider asked for a bible today and took it into the clinic.

NORWICH, CONNECTICUT: Also our local pregnancy center has seen a significant increase in abortion vulnerable and abortion minded clients as well as pregnancy tests and ultrasounds. Our nurse manager has already doubled the amount of ultrasounds she had for all of last month and it is only the 15th!

COLUMBUS, OHIO: A person who had previously had an abortion expressed great thanks and prayed with us for a bit.

WEST CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA: We received word that a baby was saved last week. A woman had come to the West Chester Planned Parenthood and because she was unhappy with the counseling she received inside, went to talk to a priest. He “dropped everything” to help her. He connected her with an active pro-life couple who’s daughter was pregnant. After seeing the ultra-sound of the daughter’s baby, she decided to let her baby live.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA: On Sept. 25 we worried that we’d have to scale back our round-the-clock vigil, but about 200 people have come out to pray and keep our vigil going 24-hours a day! We’ve been able to talk to a number of post-abortive women about counseling and healing programs–including one woman who between domestic violence and abortion had lost 9 children. People are waving, honking, stopping to pray with us or sing to us, bringing us coffee and pizza…just an amazing outpouring of support from the community.

HOUSTON, TEXAS: We have had reports from the 2 Crisis Pregnancy Centers that we refer to (we have their phone numbers on the backs of the brochures we hand out) that women are coming in with these brochures in their hands! Also, it has been obvious to those of us who come out on a regular basis that their abortion business is down. This was evidenced last week when the Stericycle truck that picks up the babies came. The driver went into Planned Parenthood with about 8 boxes and came out with 3. I expected him to go back in for more because he usually picks up 5-10, and he never did. Several of the new escorts told us that we were not what they expected and have been very friendly.

PORT ST. LUCIE, FLORIDA: The most incredible blessing we have witnessed during this campaign has been the number of girls who have just walked over to us and asked which side is the right place for a pregnancy test? We have never had so many turn-arounds each day

PENSACOLA, FLORIDA: We have had several miracles over the past 20 days. AMS of Pensacola (a local abortion mill) has been closed for 3 weeks!! We do not know why it has been closed, only to say it is God’s miracle! Praise the Lord! Taking into consideration the average number of lives lost each week at both clinics this would mean roughly 75 lives saved over 3 weeks! Also, we have had at least 6 confirmed turn-arounds along with 5 post-abortive women coming forward looking for healing!

KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE: The Diocese of Knoxville has been keeping vigil at two different abortion sites in the City of Knoxville. The response of our volunteers, the majority of whom have never done any pro-life work before, has been amazing. A local pregnancy help center said that since the campaign began, they’ve never been busier — all of which they attribute to the campaign.

INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA: Planned Parenthood was closed on its regular Saturday that they perform abortions this past weekend.

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA: Last week, one veteran pro-lifer was out praying and a car stopped. The young Mom told her that about 6 months ago she had planned to come to have an abortion, but she saw people out praying then (during our first 40 Days for Life) and decided to keep her child. That child was the infant in the car with the beaming and thankful Mom! Last Friday, two families of home schoolers came to pray for the first time. While these families were out praying, one of the young moms scheduled for an abortion decided to keep her child and left the clinic.

FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA: In the past three weeks, I have seen couples arriving early Saturday morning for an abortion and leaving early before the abortionist arrived. Last week, it appeared to be the slowest day as only 3 appeared to go in for an abortion. No one drove in to the entrance where I was standing where most normally come in.

SALEM, OREGON: We also noticed that there were two days in two weeks that the PPH office was closed down.

EVERETT, WASHINGTON: We have sensed the hand of God on our campaign from day one, and have seen at least 3 women turn away from abortion! God has given us the opportunity to counsel and refer at least a dozen women to pro-life pregnancy centers or post abortion healing, offering a “choice” to women that they didn’t get inside Planned Parenthood.

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA: Post-abortive women (and men) who came to pray have recalled “choices” they have made and can now find the hope, compassion, love, and healing they need. People who have never done anything about their pro-life values are coming to the sidewalk for the very first time, leaving touched very deeply and personally as to the enormity and destruction of this “choice” as they see first hand the women going in and most especially, seeing the same women coming out of Planned Parenthood afterward, never to be the same again. Lives have been saved as abortion appointments were canceled when the abortionist didn’t arrive for work on two scheduled killing mornings.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA: At least 3 or 4 babies have been saved every week at the Atlanta Surgi Center location. Yesterday a gentleman (sidewalk counselor), holding his baby son up to the waiting room window, caused one of the woman to abandon her abortion plan! God is good! Someone remarked, live babies are so much better than posters of aborted babies!

Two more equally dead

On October 15, 1926, 23-year-old Ethel Horner died at Chicago's Jackson park Hospital from an abortion performed earlier that day. Dr. Albert Peacock was arrested the following day. On November 15, 1926, he was indicted for felony murder.

Fast forward to October 15, 1990, when 23-year-old Angela Satterfield underwent a legal abortion. The abortionist did not diagnose Angela's ectopic pregnancy. He simply performed an abortion procedure and sent her home. That evening, the undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy ruptured. Angela was found dead in her home. She had hemorrhaged. Her death certificate only mentions the ectopic pregnancy and the hemorrhage, but her autopsy notes the failure of the abortionist to diagnose the ectopic pregnancy.

I've said it before: the biggest, most significant difference I can see is that the abortionist who killed Ethel was prosecuted, and the one who killed Angela went blithely about his business unmolested. Yeah, real big improvement for women there.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Anniversary: Did he kill her, or was he trying to fix somebody else's botch job?

On October 15, 1915, Anna Anderson, a 25-year-old unmarried woman, went to the office of Dr. A. A. Ausplund. She had previously gone to another doctor who had examined her and found her to be about three months pregnant. She‘d asked him to perform an abortion, but he‘d refused.

Dr. Auspland said that Anna was ill upon her arrival at his office, and asked him to examine her. He attempted to do so, but she gasped in pain as soon as he‘d inserted his fingers. He said he immediately saw that she was dying and went out for a stimulant, seeking help from a female physician practicing in the same building.

The two doctors, assisted by a third doctor, were unable to revive Anna.

The coroner and other witnessed testified that Anna was found with her skirts removed. They found a bloody sheet in Dr. Auspland‘s office, as well as a bloody doctor‘s coat. Several medical instruments were noted, one of which appeared to have a portion of placenta on it. The floor in his operating room was wet, as well as a Kelly pad.

The autopsy found signs of recent pregnancy of about three months duration, as well as trauma to the interior of the uterus. It was estimated that the injuries were sustained about five to eight hours before death. The undertaker who embalmed Anna said that there was almost no blood in her body.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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"Back off! I'm not dead yet!"

Read this wonderful op-ed in the Washington Post. It's pithy and full of good sense. Not to metion good humor:

I found something weasely in the way all those options were presented, as though my only real choice were between being dispatched into the hereafter at the first sign of loss of consciousness or being stuck with as many tubes as needles in a voodoo doll and imprisoned inside a ventilator until global warming melts the ice caps and the hospital washes out to sea.

HT: The Point

I've written up the three new RU-486 deaths

I hate treating them as nameless "Patient A" or "Jane Doe #1", so I've given them names: Cherish, Tara, and Wanda.

Cherish was somewhere in the midwestern United States and underwent an old-fashioned prostaglandin abortion in the second trimester. She died of a clostridium perfringens infection. This is a very unusual abortion method, so we should be able to figure out where she underwent the fatal abortion by identifying which midwestern abortion practitioner uses this method.

Tara initially had an unsuccessful attempted surgical abortion, followed by an unsuccessful medical abortion involving mifepristone, and then followed by a second and successful surgical abortion. The woman was hospitalized approximately one month after taking mifepristone, and she died approximately 24 hours after admission during a hysterectomy. There was no autopsy, but pathology findings included a degenerated, pus-filled uterine fibroid. Cultures were negative for any Clostridial bacteria. Based on the available evidence at this time, FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) do not believe this death was related to the use of mifepristone.

Wanda was in the western United States, took 200 mg of mifepristol orally, then followed up with 800 mcg of misoprostol vaginally, to induce an abortion. She died from Clorstridium perfringens infection. She almost certainly had her abortion at a Planned Parenthood.

If anybody has more information about these three deaths, please let me know.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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RU Counting?

Ashli directed me to Brian.

Brian said that five women, dead from RU-486 abortions in the US, got their fatal doses at Planned Parenthood. (at 11:27 on the audio). I questioned him about this, posting:

The women who died, two (Holly Patterson and Chanelle Bryant) got their abortion drugs at PP, two (Oriene Shevin and Vivian Tran) at National Abortion Federation members, and one (Brenda Vise) at an unlicensed facility in Tennessee. Holly, Chanelle, Vivian, and Oriene died of sepsis. Brenda died of a ruptured ectopic pregnancy that the "clinic" failed to diagnose.

I got an email from Brian thanking me, and pointing me to his source. I think he got a bit caught up in the moment and mis-spoke about five dead women that he knew of getting their abortion drugs at Planned Parenthood, but the source did point me to something troubling. The tally -- six dead in the United States -- is one more death than I'd known about. And there's this:

The F.D.A. has now received reports that six women in the United States died after taking RU-486, or Mifeprex. .... The two most recent deaths and two of the previous four underwent their procedures at Planned Parenthood clinics, a spokeswoman said.

Again, I only know of two women -- Holly and Chanelle -- who got their drugs at Planned Parenthood. Does the FDA know of two more? Or was the spokeswoman confused and attributing the National Abortion Federation deaths to Planned Parenthood? And what of the sixth woman that I don't know about?

I went poking around the FDA web site and found this page, the testimony of Dr. Janet Woodcock, Deputy Commissioner for Operations at the FDA. In particular I focused on this section, with my notes in italics and parenthesis:

Deaths Reported After Use of Mifepristone

FDA is aware of 12 deaths possibly involving the use of mifepristone in women. Nine of these deaths were in the U.S. (I only knew of five.) Of these, five were determined to be related to infections (I only knew of four -- Holly, Chanelle, Oriene, and Vivian, one involved an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy (Brenda), one appears unlikely to be related to the use of mifepristone (Was it still related to abortion, or was somebody misusing the drug in another way?), one was determined to be unrelated to either the medical abortion or the use of mifepristone and misoprostol, and one that is currently under investigation appears not to have involved the administration of misoprostol and appears to be unrelated to the use of mifepristone. In addition, there were three deaths in other countries related to mifepristone and misoprostol induced abortion. These 12 deaths are described below:

• Five deaths in U.S. women associated with mifepristone and misoprostol induced medical abortion, with what appears to be a rapidly fatal toxin-mediated shock syndrome
  
• * Four of these five, all in California, were confirmed to involve a rare anaerobic bacterium, Clostridium sordellii (C. sordellii). All involved the use of mifepristone 200 mg orally, followed by 800 mcg of misoprostol inserted intravaginally, a regimen that is not part of the FDA-approved labeling. (Holly, Chanelle, Oriene, and Vivian)
  
• * One U.S. woman from the west, whose death was confirmed to involve a different bacterium, Clostridium perfringens (C. perfringens). This case involved the use of mifepristone 200 mg orally, followed by 800 mcg of misoprostol inserted intravaginally, a regimen that is not part of the approved labeling. (One I did not know about. Does anybody have information on this woman?)
  
• One death in a U.S. woman who had an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancy is a contraindication for the use of mifepristone. (Brenda)
  
• One death involving a woman who initially had an unsuccessful attempted surgical abortion, followed by an unsuccessful medical abortion involving mifepristone, and then followed by a second and successful surgical abortion. The woman was hospitalized approximately one month after taking mifepristone, and she died approximately 24 hours after admission during a hysterectomy. There was no autopsy, but pathology findings included a degenerated, pus-filled uterine fibroid. Cultures were negative for any Clostridial bacteria. Based on the available evidence at this time, FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) do not believe this death was related to the use of mifepristone. (Though this does appear to be an abortion death. Does anybody have information on this woman?
  
• One death in the northeastern U.S. was determined to be unrelated to either the medical abortion or the use of mifepristone and misoprostol.
  
• One death in the southwestern U.S. is still under investigation, but appears not to have involved the administration of misoprostol, and appears to be unrelated to the medical abortion or the use of mifepristone.
  
• One death in Canada of a woman who died during participation in a clinical trial. This death was due to sepsis involving C. sordellii.
  
• One death in Sweden of woman as a result of severe hemorrhage related to a medical abortion.
  
• One death of a British woman was attributed to gastric (stomach) bleeding from an ulcer.

The four California deaths, plus the Canadian case, were reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in December 2005, by CDC scientists. Since that time, CDC has been actively seeking additional cases across the country. FDA is aware that CDC has identified two additional cases which appear to be unrelated to the use of mifepristone:

• A death from the midwest in a woman who had a second trimester medical abortion employing misoprostol and laminaria (a moisture absorbing medical device inserted into the vagina to stimulate cervical dilation), but not mifepristone. This woman had C. perfringens. (Another abortion death. Does anybody know anything about this woman?)
  
• A toxin-mediated infectious death due to C. sordellii in a woman who initially was reported to have had a medical abortion. However, the woman had appendicitis and pneumonia, not a uterine infection, and CDC has been unable (despite extensive investigation) to find evidence that she had an abortion or had ever been pregnant.

The cases of women with C. sordellii infection are of great concern to FDA and CDC. C. sordellii is a rare infection and has been reported in the literature since the 1930s. The largest case series, published in 1989 by McGregor, Soper, and colleagues in the obstetrical literature, describes cases after vaginal delivery and Cesarean section, as well as a case of spontaneous endometritis. All developed a fatal shock syndrome. Other literature describes infectious illnesses in intravenous drug users and in organ transplant recipients.

Well, I have to leave for work now, so I can't do any further research at the moment. But please do poke around, at the FDA site and elsewhere. Maybe even contact the FDA directly. If the New York Times was right in citing an FDA spokeswoman's statement that four of the dead in the US died after getting the drugs at Planned Parenthood, then it looks like the two mystery women above may have died after abortions at Planned Parenthood. Since this is still the midst of 40 Days for Life, there's a lot of prayer going on so now is a good time to do research to bring into the light what had been kept in the darkness.

Let's keep each other posted.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Somebody wanted Gideon Kioko

Or at least they wanted information about him.

Kioko worked at the notorious Hillview abortion mill in Maryland, and performed the fatal abortions on Suzanne Logan and Debra Gray.

Kioko surrendered license his medical license 1991, admittedly in order to avoid prosecution in the cases of Gray and Logan. Less than six months later, he asked to get his license reinstated, but the board denied the request. Kioko continued to practice medicine in Maryland, and in 1993, on Kioko's request, the D.C. board reviewed cases that Kioko himself selected from among his hospital patients. (He submitted no records from patients he cared for in the unsupervised setting of his office.) Based on a review of 20 of those records, the DC board concluded that his practice met the standard of care. He tried again in 1994 to get his Maryland license back, but the board still found him unfit.

Kioko took his petition to the Circuit Court of Prince George's County, and on July 15, 1996, Judge Thomas P. Smith sent the case back to the medical board for further review, having found fault with their handling of Kioko's case. In a twist that shows Kioko was evidently a better conniver than he is a physician, the fact that Kioko voluntarily surrendered his license in the wake of the Hillview cases kept the board from doing a full review and disciplinary action and thus greased the wheels for getting his license back on the grounds that it had never been adequately documented that he was unfit to practice.

With the case kicked back to them under judicial order, the board reviewed Kioko's history and stated that:

When initially considering Dr. Kioko's petition for reinstatement of his suspended license, the [board] was not presuaded that Dr. Kioko expressed true remorse for the Hillview victims, except to the extent that it interfered with his professional career. In fact, it was not clear that Dr. Kioko was even cognizant of his own role in the deaths of two patients. Over the past several years .... [the board] has observed a change. Dr. Kioko appears truly remorseful for the deaths of the Hillview patients, has a better understanding of both his role in those events and the need to take responsibility to insure that they are not repeated.

Dr. Kioko ... now seems to comprehend that his role as a surgeon goes beyond merely performing a technical procedure: he is responsible for overseeing the well being of the patient.

The board noted that Kioko had busied himself with volunteer work.

Dr. Kioko's eventual understanding of the Hillview tragedies and his rehabilitative efforts to correct deficiencies in his judgment and training in life support skills to endure that they will never happen again, persuades the [board] that Dr. Kioko is competent to practice medicine in this State, provided he is placed on probation for a period of time and subject to certain restrictions.

Three patients also testified to the board of their confidence in Kioko. (Wouldn't you like to know who they are so you could ask them what drugs they were on when they defended this quack?) The board gave Kioko his license back in 1997, provided he didn't use general anesthesia or IV sedation unless in a hospital with an anesthesiologist present, and that he not do abortions past 12 weeks, among other requirements such as community service.

The Maryland medical board was far from finished with Gideon Kioko.

The board got a complaint on January 13, 2005, from the Risk Manager at Washington Adventist Hospital. The Risk Manager noted that on December 1, 2004, 26-year-old Patient A had been brought to their hospital by ambulance after an incomplete abortion done at Kioko's office that day. I'll refer to her as Astrid. The board also got an anonymous phone call, and a fax, complaining about Kioko's treatment of Patient B., who I'll refer to as Bethany. More on these patients later.

Kioko had been renting the office in question part-time from a dermatologist. There, Kioko was performing outpatient abortions, including second-trimester abortions, at the rate of about four a month, according to his own admissions.

The carpeting on the floor of the procedure room was described as "stained and unclean." Kioko's staff said that he did not use a new sterile tube for each patient. "The tube is used throughout the day and then washed and reused until it becomes opaque and then it is discarded." When suction is broken, fluid from this tube may backwash into the uterus of the patient.

The printer on the ultrasound machine was broken, so there were no hard copies of ultrasounds in patient records. There was no crash cart, laryngoscope, or equipment for entubating and providing oxygen to a patient who needed resuscitation. On a second site visit, Kioko's staff indicated that his "crash cart" consisted of an empty capped syringe and two vials of epinephrine kept in a rubber exam glove taped to the wall of the procedure room. There were no policies in place for dealing with an emergency.

Kioko also told the inspector that he did not keep appointment logs, and that he destroyed sign-in sheets the day of the appointment, for reasons of "confidentiality." Kioko had three employees: His wife, his niece who was reportedly a nursing student and occasionally worked as a receptionist, and a medical assistant/office secretary. This last employee would take vital signs, perform finger sticks, sterilize equipment, assist in procedures by handing things to Kioko, and cleaned up after procedures. Kioko's wife reportedly performed those tasks when the regular assistant was not there. At times only two staff would be in the building: Kioko and one of the three employees.

Kioko's wife reported that she did not work for her husband. She was a full time administrator of a home health agency. She did say that she occasionally helped with filing, answering the phone, and office duties on the evenings or Saturdays. She also said that she sometimes assisted with prepping patients for abortions, but she would do the charting and sign as if she was the regular medical assistant. Kioko's wife said that she was a registered nurse in the state of Maryland, but was unable to provide her license number. Upon investigation the board verified that Kioko's wife was lying; she was "not licensed by the Maryland Board of Nursing as an RN, or in any other licensure status."

Staff told the board that Kioko would perform an ultrasound to determine gestational age, but with the printer broken no hard copy would be available for the patients' charts. Kioko did not always document the ultrasound findings such as biparietal diameter or crown length. Kioko told the board that he obtains a medical history from all patients, but "does not always document this history." He told the board that he didn't perform physical exams "except if the patient presents with a significant medical history." He did indicate that he performed a pelvic exam on all patients. Staff noted that Kioko did not always complete history and physical exam forms.

Kioko's staff indicated that he administered paracervical blocks to his abortion patients, but did not use sedation, intravenous anesthesia, or general anesthesia in his office. (Thank God for small favors.) A blood pressure would be taken before and after the abortion. The patient would be walked to the other room, and after an hour Kioko would check her for bleeding and discharge her with an aftercare sheet, a prescription for antibiotics, and an appointment for a follow-up exam in two weeks. He did not send tissues to a lab for a pathology exam.

Kioko had no contract for biohazard removal, particularly the bloody fetal remains and sheets. Staff said Kioko would put these biohazardous materials into a red bag and dispose of them himself. "Office staff did not know where." Kioko lacked procedures for cleaning and sterilizing instruments. A refrigerator near the receptionist's desk contained drugs, food, soda, and condiments.

Now, let's get back to Astrid ("Patient A").

The board investigation found that Astrid had come to Kioko's office at 9 a.m. for her abortion. Only Kioko and the receptionist were there. The receptionist called for someone to come to the office. Astrid told Kioko that she believed she was four months pregnant. Kioko told different stories about estimating the gestational age. Initially, he'd said that the electric power had gone out, so he'd not done an ultrasound. But later he said that he'd done an ultrasound and estimated that Astrid was 19 to 20 weeks pregnant. Astrid's chart in Kioko's office didn't contain any ultrasound or documentation that one had been performed.

An unidentified young woman took Astrid's vital signs. No blood work was performed. At about 10 a.m., Kioko started an IV and gave Astrid some Motrin. Kioko said that the power kept going on and off during the aspiration procedure, which he started at about 11:30 a.m. He also stated that there was a "power failure" for about an hour.

At around noon, Astrid started to feel hot and dizzy, and requested her cell phone to call her emergency contact person. Kioko refused to give it to her. Astrid said that Kioko also refused her pleas that he call her emergency contact for her.

At about 2 p.m., Kioko resumed the procedure. He removed the placenta but was unable to remove the head. Astrid was bleeding profusely. Astrid said that Kioko told her that he would have to "cut the baby up" to get it out, but was unable to remove the head.

Astrid told Kioko to call 911 because she was having trouble breathing and kept passing out. She said that nobody was monitoring her blood pressure during this time. Kioko called his wife, and she came to his office to help. She took vital signs and observed Astrid. (Kioko's wife told the board she had no recollection of these events.)

Finally, at 3:50 p.m., Kioko called 911, reporting that an abortion patient was semi-conscious, and bleeding profusely. He asked for Astrid to be taken to Prince George's Hospital. The county ambulance arrived at 3:55. Upon arrival, EMS staff heard a woman screaming from the back of the office. Kioko told them that Astrid was bleeding and that the fetal head was still in her uterus. (At least he gave them some information. Another small favor.) Kioko told them he suspected D.I.C. Here I'll quote the EMS report:

Femal pt. naked from the waist down and rolling back and forth on the table, screaming. Pt. covered in blood, legs bathed in blood, heavy constant stream of blood spurting from pt's vagina, table covered in blood numerous equipment tools on tables covered in blood. Suction unit on table also covered in blood and had blood in it. Pt. had an IV line started by on scene office personnel. IV bag also covered in blood.

Pt. responded to her name but could not answer questions. Moaning and screaming. Pt. Stopped moving. Female attendant on scene tried to arouse pt. No response. (emergency personnel) slid onto cot. Pt. awake as being moved & responded by screaming again.

Astrid was taken to Washington Adventist Hospital because it had the closest emergency department. She arrived there at 4:09 p.m. Surgery repaired the damage to her reproductive organs and removed a 17.5 cm fetal head, consistent with a 20.5 to 22 week fetus.

Bethany ("Patient B") was 30 years old when she went to Kioko on January 29, 2005. She was referred to Kioko by Potomac Family Planning. She completed an intake form noting that this was her fourth pregnancy. She'd had two previous abortions and one miscarriage. Bethany didn't complete the sections of the form about allergies, current medications, or medical history. Kioko didn't chart anything about Bethany's prior pregnancies and abortions.

Kioko did document a pelvic exam, estimating the fetus as 18+ weeks. He said that he also verified the gestational age with an ultrasound examination. Nothing about this was noted on Bethany's chart. Kioko later told the board that Bethany had brought an ultrasound with her that another physician had performed. Somebody charted vital signs.

Kioko administered a paracervical block, and began the abortion using a 16 mm suction tip. The aspiration was performed "with difficulty." Kioko suspected that he had perforated Bethany's uterus and possibly damaged her bowel. He documented the procedure as completed at 3 p.m., and transferred Bethany to Prince George's Hospital. The hospital records indicate that Bethany arrived at about 7 p.m. and that Kioko had brought her in his own car.

Kioko had sense enough to request help with the surgery to fix Bethany's injuries. Bethany had suffered a perforated uterus, and "transection of rectosigmoid colon and extensive lacerations of the left colon and upper rectum and perforated urinary bladder." The other doctor repaired Bethany's bladder and performed a colostomy, while Kioko performed a hysterectomy, removing the uterus and fetus. Bethany was hospitalized until February 6.

Based on those findings, the board noted that "facts regarding [Kioko's] office conditions and procedures in [his] care and treatment of Patients A and B, constitute extraordinary circumstances, requiring immediate suspension of [his] license to practice medicine." The DC medical board has also, finally, suspended Kioko's license.

A patient in DC, Thakerya Drayton, complained to the medical board about him. She'd been referred to him for an abortion. She was in a lot of pain in the recovery room, where she spent about an hour. When she returned home, she was "bleeding out of control". After a few days, Thakerya's mother called an ambulance. Thakerya was treated for an incomplete abortion. The board found that an incomplete abortion was an expected complication and declined to investigate the case.

God only knows how Kioko managed to practice unsupervised for 8 years without, to anybody's knowledge, killing any more of his patients.

Elsewhere on the web:

• Despite Deaths, DC License Upheld
  
• Gideon M. Kioko, M.D., CR No. 256 (1993)

40 Days For Life updates

From Sacramento: "Tuesdays and Fridays are usually abortion mornings here. But thanks be to God, the next day --Tuesday -- the abortionist never showed up. Prayers are being answered!"

Prayers needed for a woman taking a break in her chemo to let her baby mature to where they can deliver and then continue her chemo. NB: There's never been any evidence that abortion increases a mother's odds of surviving cancer. The rationale is that chemo might hurt the baby, so better kill it to be on the safe side. Fetus-friendly chemo regimens are available. Anybody needing links, I can look them up later. Right now I'm blogging quickly before I leave for church so I don't have time!

Abortionists in Kansas are not happy campers.

There will be a Midpoint Rally in D.C. on the 16th.

Please let me know of any other updates.

Search: anesthesia death

Somebody was looking for "anesthesia death" recently. This is what I have:

These women are some of those who died from mistakes or mishaps relating to anesthesia. For more about the underlying causes of deaths like these, see Anesthesia or Analgesia Related Deaths of Women From Legal Abortion: The Need for Increased Regulation

Angela Scott/Dolores Smith: In June of 1979, National Abortion Federation member Atlanta Women's Pavillion rose to new levels of incompetence when staff there managed to fatally injure two teenage abortion patients in less than an hour.


"Annie" Roe traveled from New Jersey to New York in 1971, for the safe, legal abortion that killed her.

Brenda Benton ended up in a hospital with liver failure, and died April 20, 1987.

Catherine Pierce languished in a coma for seven months before dying of complications from an abortion done at a National Abortion Federation member facility.

Darlene Wood underwent her fatal abortion in Temple University Hospital.

Dawn Mack was one of two patients -- both, coincidentally, named Dawn -- who died after anesthesia complications at Eastern Women's Center.

Dawn Ravenell
Thirteen-year-old Dawn's parents didn't know anything was amiss, until they got a phone call to come to the hospital right away, that Dawn was "fighting for her life."

Deanna Bell was only 13 years old when she was given massive doses of Brevitol for an abortion by Steve Lichtenberg.

Deborah Ann Lozinski, age 17, had languished for two months in a coma, hospitalized after an abortion at Medical Care Center in Woodbridge, New Jersey.

Debra Gray went to Hillview Women's Medical Center for an abortion on July 12, 1989. A nurse injected her with a fast-acting barbituate to prepare her for the abortion. Debra went into cardiac arrest.

Diane Watson: None of the four physicians on the premises performed CPR on Diane after she went into cardiac arrest.

Donna Heim: Her sister, who was in the waiting room at Her Medical Clinic, became alarmed at the intense staff activity, and asked a staffer about her sister. She was told Donna was fine. Then she saw an ambulance pull up to the building and stepped outside, where she observed Donna being transferred into the emergency vehicle.

Gail Mazo vomited and choked during her abortion at Mt. Sinai in New York.

Georgianna "Jeannie" English: Former criminal abortionist Milan Vuitch had been operating his clinic without a license for two years when 32-year-old Jeannie English came to him for an abortion on January 12, 1980. Vuitch administered general anesthsia for Jeannie, and she never woke up.

Gwendolyn Cliett was about to undergo an elective abortion at Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia when she reacted to anesthesia and died.

Jacqueline Reynolds underwent an abortion at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta on August 27, 1986. Due to inadequate oxygenation during general anesthesia, Jacqueline lapsed into a coma. She died on September 5.

Janet Lally Blaum: Her ex-husband sued abortionist Sydney Knight on behalf of the couple's children, alleging that Knight had administered a fatal dose of anesthesia while preparing Janet for the abortion.

K. B. : After K.B.'s death, the health department investigated and found a mystery: K.B.'s chart listed her post-operative condition as "pink, responsive, alert," even though she had gone into full cardio-respiratory arrest by the time indicated on the assessment.

Laniece Dorsey died from cardiorespiratory arrest due to anesthesia for her safe, legal abortion.

Mary Davies is the only woman known to have died from abortion related complications under the care of famed illegal abortionist Dr. Robert Spencer.

Mary Ann Page was 37 years old when she underwent her fatal abortion and tubal ligation.

Mitsue Mohar
Mitsue went into cardiac arrest during her abortion, convulsed, and went into a coma from which she never recovered.

Patricia King went to Dean H. Diment in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for an abortion on May 4, 1987. Patricia went into cardiac arrest after being injected with anesthetic.

Robin Wells went into cardiac arrest in the recovery room, and was transferred by ambulance to a hospital. She remained in a coma until her death on August 2, 1981.

"Roxanne" Roe traveled from Michigan to New York for the safe-and-legal abortion that took her life.

Stacy Ruckman: An autopsy found toxic concentrations of Lidocaine in Stacy's blood. Her parents sued, and a jury awarded them $25.3 million for the wrongful death of their daughter.

Suzanne Logan awoke, paralyzed, after four months in a coma following her abortion at Maryland's notorious Hillview abortion mill. She died after three years in a nursing home.

Tanya Williamson was not adequately monitored in the recovery room of Moshe Hachamovitch's abortion facility.

Venus Ortiz lingered nearly six years in a vegetative state after her safe and legal abortion at New York's Eastern Women's Center.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Words of wisdom from C.S. Lewis

I was looking for Screwtape quotes when I stumbled across this:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
"God in the Dock" (1948)

As any woman who has endured a regretted abortion can attest to.

Squeamish abortionists speak out in the UK

The Abortion Debate Heats Up in the UK quotes an article in the Daily Mail: What REALLY happens during an abortion: One surgeon finally tells the truth:

In next Wednesday's Dispatches programme on Channel 4 we reveal the deep concern among many doctors who, like Dr Argent, work within the abortion service and are passionate supporters of a woman's right to choose, yet who still believe the current law urgently needs changing.

....

Dr Spencer opens a fresh pack of shiny instruments. He's an extremely calm, softly spoken man, which somehow makes his words all the more devastating. "The foetus can't come out in one go. We haven't dilated sufficiently for that. The foetal parts are soft enough to break apart as they are being removed..."

In other words, he has to dismember the foetus inside the uterus and pull it out, bit by bit. He uses an ultrasound scan to guide him. Even then, some body parts are too large to come out intact.

To illustrate what happens, Dr Spencer grips his thumb between the surgical forceps and squeezes gently. "Those parts are the skull and then the spine and pelvis, and in fact they are crushed..."

....

Already many local NHS trusts don't have any staff who are willing to perform abortions much beyond 12 weeks of pregnancy.

....

Dr Kate Guthrie is a senior member of the RCOG. She also runs the NHS abortion service in Hull, where she operates on patients who are up to 14 weeks pregnant.


She'd be willing to retrain for the more complicated later procedure, but she wouldn't operate beyond 20 weeks. "I think every individual has their cut-off point. It's not scientific, it's just personal, it's just foetal size."


When I press her to spell out whether she means if the foetus is just "too much of a baby", she says: "I suppose so."

....

n the mid-Nineties, partly in response to growing public concern about such issues, the RCOG put together a panel of experts who came to the reassuring conclusion that the foetus couldn't feel pain until 26 weeks gestation - safely beyond the abortion time limit.


They said the part of the brain that responds to pain simply isn't developed at 26 weeks. In other words, any physical movements the foetus displays before then are purely reflex actions - the foetus is not aware and can't feel anything.


But we found disturbing research in America that directly contradicts this established view. It came from Dr Sunny Anand, who has a distinguished record in helping to prove that very young babies can feel pain. When he was based at Oxford University in the 1980s his work helped to ensure that newborn babies were routinely given pain relief for surgical procedures.

His latest research is extremely technical and covers two areas. First, he's been comparing how newborn babies and unborn foetuses react to any kind of stress, including pain.

He's found similar changes in their hormones and their blood flow, suggesting that foetuses can indeed respond to pain.

Secondly, he's been researching - using rats - exactly which parts of the developing brain are used to detect pain.

He says that while the adult uses the very top section of the brain, the foetus has the first flickerings of sensation in the area below that. Crucially, this part of the brain develops before 26 weeks.

His conclusions could have enormous consequences for the abortion debate. He told Dispatches: "I believe that foetuses can feel pain very likely by 20 weeks of gestation and possibly even earlier."

....

Back in July, we filmed a newborn baby named Hope in the neo-natal intensive care unit of Liverpool Women's Hospital. In her incubator, Hope was almost invisible under a pink blanket, surrounded by wires and bleeping monitors.

She had been born at 23 weeks - one week before she could have still been legally aborted. And here she was, three weeks later, still clinging to life with the frailest of grips.

Hope lived for two months, with her parents constantly at her side, before she died. In Britain, modern drugs and high-tech treatment meant she had about a 25 per cent chance of survival - hich would have doubled if she'd been born a week later. The odds were against her from the outset.

But those statistics are changing all the time. In America the chances of her survival would have been better, and what happens over there will inevitably filter through to Britain.

At a specialist unit in Arkansas, we filmed Dr Whit Hall checking on his tiny patients. "The survival is as high as 75 to 80 per cent for 24-weekers and about 50 per cent for 23-weekers," he explained.

....

And again, equally dead

"Tammy" traveled from Ohio to New York to undergo an abortion, which was performed on September 25, 1971. She was 33 years old. After the abortion, Tammy developed an infection which finally ended her life on October 13, 1971.

On October 13, 1939, the body of Barbara Hanson, age 21, was found in a Houston, Texas, motel room. James Carter and George F. Norton pleaded guilty to performing the abortion that killed Barbara, and each received a 5-7 year sentence. Barbara's boyfriend and another man pleaded guilty to accessory charges and were each sentenced to one year.

The main difference I can see is that the people responsible for Barbara's death were tracked down and held accountable, whereas the people responsible for Tammy's death got away with it.

Ah, the many benefits of safe, legal abortion!

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Not killing a baby?

Operation Rescue looks at a video by (not about) George "Teflon" Tiller. He discusses why he uses lethal injection to execute the fetus on Day One of his late abortion process:

“The first reason is so that there will be no fetal pain. We – we have learned with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of patients that women have the question about, ‘Will this be painful for our baby? Will this be painful for my baby?’ And the answer to that is ‘no.’"

I'd have to disagree with the idea that it's not painful to get a digoxin shot in the heart. Wasn't there just a big brouhaha in Florida about how the digoxin injection used to execute convicted murderers is painful and cruel? But it's painless when you do it to a baby?

And it's not me calling these fetuses babies. It's the mothers on whose behest they're being executed. And it's on request, not due to compelling medical reason. Again, let's quote Teflon Tiller: “At Women’s Health Care Services, our late elective abortion program involves managing the pregnancy by the premature delivery of a stillborn.” (My emphesis)

The story links to stories Tiller patients emailed to OR. To their credit, OR posts the one "satisfied customer" too. Though I'd think that perinatal hospice would be a far more compassionate response to a lethal fetal abnormality than guilt-tripping the mother into a third trimester abortion. Funny how the same people who insist that abortion isn't painful for the fetus turn around and recommend abortion on the grounds that life itself is painful for the fetus. Make up your minds!

Well, technically it's true....

This review of the new documentary, "Lake of Fire", has an interesting quote:

"This was not a balanced portrayal of the issue," said Carol King, former National Organization for Women board member and abortion-rights activist, who has seen the documentary. "One of the things that has upset me more than anything else is the [comparison] of the anti-choice extremists to pro-choice activists. I have never encouraged in any way to kill people with whom I disagree."

Technically true. She has never encouraged anybody to kill people with whom she disagrees. She just encourages them to kill people whose presence they themselves find troubling. King has no personal beef with the fetuses in question.

But ya know, they're just as dead as if she did have a personal grudge against them.

In a way, what she does is even worse, because of the cold, clinical detachment of the whole thing. It's one thing to kill somebody you hate. One act of murder where you at least have the guts to look your victim in the eye. It's another entirely to build your life around encouraging the wholesale slaughter of people you feel nothing for whatsoever, people you avert your eyes from, people whose existence you deny even as you fight for other people's right to deny them life.

One is hot-blooded murder. You can't condone it, but it's at least human.

The other is as cold as death itself.

Not to mention there's an inherent hipocracy in an abortion advocate opposing any kind of killing. Paul Hill made an agonizing moral choice, in consultation with his God and his conscience. He did what King insists is every WOMAN'S right. On what grounds can she possibly oppose giving the same moral agency to Paul Hill that she insists we are to give women?

If women have the right to kill people whose existence is troubling to them, then men have that same right, Ms. King.

Unintentionally funny

I followed this link from Breakpoint.



That is an unfortunate choice of picture. I can't help thinking, "If she'd have clutched her legs together that tight in the first place, she'd not be fretting about finding a willing aboritonist, would she?" Ah, all undressed and no place to go.

The good news, though, is that docs in the UK aren't being attracted to abortion. In fact, they're opting out.

RCOG spokesman Kate Guthrie, who is head of abortion services in Hull, said: "You get no thanks for performing abortions, you get spat on. Who admits to friends at a dinner party that they are an abortionist?"

Gee, I thought that just everybody thought abortion was great stuff. If the abortion lobby is right, if everybody shares their high opinion of abortion, why don't they want to sit next to abortionists at dinner?

So much for "nobody loves abortion"

The "Sacrament" of Abortion (HT: Defend Life)

Patricia Baird-Windle, self-professed wiccan (witch), actually said, “Abortion is a major blessing, and a sacrament in the hands of women. ... At the very crucible of the sacrament of abortion work is that some women have an abortion out of love for the baby, [some] out of love for the children they already have and are having a hard time feeding.”

An Episcopal “priestess,” Carter Hayward said, “Abortion would be a sacrament if women were in charge. Abortion should be a sacrament even today. I suspect that for many women today, and for their spouses, lovers, families and communities, abortion is celebrated as such, an occasion of deep and serious and sacred meaning.”

The sidebar links to a PDF of additional quotes along the same lines:

"Women's right to choose is what I, as a Catholic, dare to call sacramental. ... Reproductive choice is a sacred trust and women are more than equal to the task. Bringing this to public expression, 'praising our choices' as poet Mary Piercy has said, is something that a just society will celebrate as sacramental." (Mary E. Hunt, former member of Catholics (sic) for a Free Choice Board of Directors, "Abortion in a Just Society," CFFC newsletter, July/August 1988)

"When my turn came I stretched out on the table, feet in the stirrups, ready to let my little darling go. ... I realized that, even if my head and my heart accepted the loss, my uterus still saw it as a mortal threat and was protesting with all its strength in an effort to protect its little lodger. I was very proud of my uterus for doing its job so well! ... The next day life went back to normal. But curiously, several friends I met asked me: 'What's going on with you? You're so radiant today, you're absolutely glowing.' What's going on is that I've just had an abortion and lived an impossible love and accomplished a great reconciliation with myself. But it was my secret and my gift." (Ginette Paris, The Sacrament of Abortion)

You can't make this stuff up.

Time to revisit The Revenge of Conscience:

[W]e aren’t gently wafted into the abyss but violently propel ourselves into it.

....

Holding conscience down doesn’t deprive it of its force; it merely distorts and redirects that force. We are speaking of something less like the erosion of an earthen dike so that it fails to hold the water back, than like the compression of a powerful spring so that it buckles to the side.

....

Even when suppressed, however, the knowledge of guilt always produces certain objective needs, which make their own demand for satisfaction irrespective of the state of the feelings. These needs include confession, atonement, reconciliation, and justification.

Now when guilt is acknowledged, the guilty deed can be repented so that these four needs can be genuinely satisfied. But when the guilty knowledge is suppressed, they can only be displaced. That is what generates the impulse to further wrong.

....

The need for reconciliation arises from the fact that guilt cuts us off from God and man. Without repentance, intimacy must be simulated precisely by sharing with others in the guilty act. .... Violation of a basic human bond is so terrible that the burdened conscience must instantly establish an abnormal one to compensate; the very gravity of the transgression invests the new bond with a sense of profound significance. Naturally some will find it attractive.

The reconciliation need has a public dimension, too. Isolated from the community of moral judgment, transgressors strive to gather a substitute around themselves. They don’t sin privately; they recruit. The more ambitious among them go further. Refusing to go to the mountain, they require the mountain to come to them: society must be transformed so that it no longer stands in awful judgment.

....

Sin ramifies. It is fertile, fissiparous, and parasitic, always in search of new kingdoms to corrupt. It breeds. But just as a virus cannot reproduce except by commandeering the machinery of a cell, sin cannot reproduce except by taking over the machinery of conscience. Not a gear, not a wheel is destroyed, but they are all set turning in different directions than their wont. Evil must rationalize, and that is its weakness. But it can, and that is its strength.

We’ve seen that although conscience works in everyone, it doesn’t restrain everyone. In all of us some of the time, in some of us all of the time, its fearsome energy merely "multiplies transgressions." Bent backwards by denial, it is more likely to catalyze moral collapse than hold it back.

Call for prayer

I just got off the phone with a woman back in the US, and she and Mark Crutcher are working on something that she expects to be released very soon. "It's time," she told me. Which is interesting because I'd called her to say, "It's time."

This is something that's gonna really cost this woman and her family, but it's something they've decided that they really need to do, and they need to do it now.

Pray for them, that they have the strength and grace to deal with the aftermath, be it firestorm or a renewed and crushing wave of the same mind-boggling indifference they've endured for 18 years now.

Pray that our sense that "It's time" is right. That the time is right. That Mark's hand be guided. That this family's courage produce fruit worth the pain it's costing them.

And keep your eye on Life Dynamics.

Read. And re-read. And re-re-read.

The Revenge of Conscience:

If the law written on the heart can be repressed, then we cannot count on it to restrain us from doing wrong; that much is obvious. I have made the more paradoxical claim that repressing it hurls us into further wrong. Holding conscience down doesn’t deprive it of its force; it merely distorts and redirects that force. We are speaking of something less like the erosion of an earthen dike so that it fails to hold the water back, than like the compression of a powerful spring so that it buckles to the side.

Here is how it works. Guilt, guilty knowledge, and guilty feelings are not the same thing; men and women can have the knowledge without the feelings, and they can have the feelings without the fact. Even when suppressed, however, the knowledge of guilt always produces certain objective needs, which make their own demand for satisfaction irrespective of the state of the feelings. These needs include confession, atonement, reconciliation, and justification.

Now when guilt is acknowledged, the guilty deed can be repented so that these four needs can be genuinely satisfied. But when the guilty knowledge is suppressed, they can only be displaced. That is what generates the impulse to further wrong.

HT: Weeds and Wheat

Jill Stanek on "Lake of Fire"

I'll let her speak for herself as she looks at the reviews that are coming out.

Pray. I'm considering approaching somebody about something I think is long, long overdue. Pray that regardless of whether this person says yes or no, the point is gotten across. I know what the abortion lobby's response to "Lake of Fire" is going to be. And it's about time we stopped letting them get away with it.

Again, equally dead

On October 11, 1926, Jeanette Jarrett, a 28-year-old Black woman, died from complications of a criminal abortion performed on her that day. A Black doctor, Roy Shell, was held by the coroner on October 29. On November 1, he was indicted for felony murder.

****

According to LDI, 17-year-old Sharonda Rowe had an abortion done in a doctor's office in Washington, DC on October 11, 1981. She suffered lacerations in her vagina and uterus, causing a massive, fatal air embolism.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Safe n Legal Anniversary in Dayton

L'Echelle Head, age 21, died October 11, 2000, after an abortion at Dayton Women's Health Services. Dayton Right to Life said that L'Echelle was pronounced dead at Samaritan Hospital after she'd been sent home from the clinic. Police had been called to a private residence to investigate the report of an unresponisve 21-year-old woman shortly after 6 p.m.

L'Echelle's obituary indicates that she left behind a daughter, her parents, and three sisters.

Peggy Lehner of Dayton Right to Life said, "The final results of the autopsy are still pending. From early indications it appeas she suffered some sort of blood clot or embolism."

Dayton Women's Health Services had been caught operating without a license in 1999. It was inspected on October 27, 1999, to see if a license should be granted. Inspectors found rusty instruments, improperly-marked medications, and a failure to follow sterile technique. The clinic administrators were told they'd have to correct the problems to get a license. The clinic got the license after getting a waiver regarding follow-up care for patients.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Illegal anniversary: Martha Kohnke

I learned about Katherine Cross‘s sad end while looking for memorials for the unborn at Find-a-Grave. Evidently Colby Weaver, who is interested in old headstones, was intrigued by the inscription on Katherine‘s headstone: "Murdered by Human Wolves." He gathered the following information.

The Seminole County News in Oklahoma reported that Katherine died October 10, 1917, from a "criminal operation" performed by Dr. A. H. Yates and his assistant, a schoolteacher named Frederick O‘Neal. Katherine, who had been born in August of 1899, was 18 years old.

Katherine was the second victim Yates was charged with murdering by abortion in as many months. Elise Stone had died in August.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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Anniversary: Safe, legal abortion leaves little girl motherless

October 10, 1989, 27-year-old Catherine Pierce died in a nursing home in Tennessee from abortion complications that had left her comatose since March 11. She left an 11-year-old daughter motherless. The abortion was performed at Atlanta Surgi-Center, which had at one time also done business as "Northside Women's Clinic," and was performed by Daniel McBrayer.

Catherine had gone into cardiac arrest while left unattended in recovery after her abortion. State officials alleged "serious problems" after Peirce was injured. They cited this National Abortion Federation facility for administering "the same anesthesia dosages" to patients whose weights ranges from 107 to 167 pounds, inadequate record keeping, and inadequate supervision of patients.



State investigators indicated that they'd been turned away the first time they'd tried to inspect the facility, and were forced to stage a raid in order to obtain the records needed to investigate the mishap that later killed Catherine. The clinic complained that they'd only turned the state investigators away because they'd failed to display badges and a subpoena. They also complained to the press that the raid was "political harassment" due to the fact that an anti-abortion activist had complained to the state about the facility.

Among the patient care problems cited, the investigators also said that they found discrepancies between the number of fetuses sent to the disposal lab and the number of abortions performed. In 1989 Atlanta Surgi-Center had logged 1,748 abortions, but had only sent 155 fetuses for disposal. In 1988 they had logged 2,774 abortions, but only sent 155 fetuses for disposal. In 1987 they logged 1,104 abortoins but only sent 306 fetuses for disposal. The investigation into fetus disposal was prompted by local prolifers reporting that they had seen hundreds of fetuses in the clinic's dumpsters. Dr. Gay, the clinic director, denied the allegations.

It is possible that Atlanta Surgi-Center is the same facility as the "Atlanta Northside" facility where Geneva Calton had undergone her fatal abortion in 1979.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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They're not in the same Kansas anymore, Toto!

Abortionists in Kansas are not a bunch of happy campers right now.. George "Teflon" Tiller is facing investigations by the legislature, the medical board, and a grand jury relating to the growing mound of evidence that he routinely sells illegal post-viability abortions. Abortionist Sherman Zaremski is being investigated for aborting a 12-year-old rape victim, abused by her step-father, without reporting the abuse, thus allowing the abuse against her and her sisters to continue for four more years. And Planned Parenthood is facing a drive to have them investigated for their own illegal activity, mostly related to failure to report child sexual abuse and performing illegal late abortions.

Anglican Church: All Your Organs Are Belong to Us

I'll try not to be snide about this. But it's hard. The Anglican Church has decleared that it's a "Christian duty" to allow your still-living body to be cut up for other people's benefit if doctors decide you're close enough to death to suit them.

One of the Christian charities is to comfort the dying. And I fail to see how one can fulfil that duty by forcing that person to be strapped down to a table, paralyzed with drugs but not anesthetized, while cut open for his organs.

This is so wrong on so many levels.

If somebody wants to willingly consent to this, that's one thing. But to mandate it? As a religious body. Jesus said, "As you did unto these, the least of my brothers and sisters, you did to me."

And I'm not the only one objecting to treating the dying as if they're already stone cold dead. And I'm not the only one pointing out that "brain dead" people are not really dead.

Encouragement!

I've been in a terrible funk lately, feeling as if nothing I do really matters to anybody. Sunday morning found me curled up on the floor of my shower, crying, broken down from feeling so totally purposeless and alone. I cried out to God to show me that anything I did mattered to anybody, that I was some good to somebody in this life.

I got up this morning, still pretty depressed. I cued up "He Knows My Name" to try to lift my spirits:



And I opened my email. I found this notification from Blogger:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Somebody was looking for "aborting a 20 week fetus...":

I was 100% pro choice until seeing this posting. I am 17 weeks pregnant and was considering "my options" while I await my amnio results. This site absolutely convinced me that at this point it would be murder to abort my child if it has downs syndrome. It actually made my "choice" easier because I will never abort it now.

I invited Anon to keep in touch, and provided some Down Syndrome links.

I remember back when I was in college. I had a pregnancy scare right after getting a rubella vaccine and a series of pelvic x-rays. It'd been told (faslely, it turned out) that the rubella vaccine was so damaging to the fetus that I would "have to have an abortion" if I got pregnant during the three months following the vaccine. I was scared. And this was before home pregnancy tests. I had to wait until my period was two weeks late then pay what was for me a week's grocery money for a blood test. Otherwise I'd have had to wait until I missed a second period to have the freebie urine test for pregnancy.

I remember my anguish as I waited for the time to pass until I could have the test, and the agony of waiting the two days (yes, two days!) for the results. I'd been told by my doctor that the pelvic x-rays showed an enlarged uterus. He would tell me no other possibility than pregnancy to explain it. So I was sure that the pregnancy was already diagnosed on the x-ray, that the test was just going to confirm it.

There I was. I'd been taught in college by my ever-so "pro-choice" professor about how failing to abort a fetus with a disability was "inflicting a disability on a helpless child." I didn't want to do that. But neither did I want to kill my baby.

It wasn't until after the test came back negative, after my mom's OB/GYN examined me and found out that the "enlarged" uterus was just a "tipped" uterus, perfectly normal, that I realized that giving birth wouldn't have been "inflicting a disability on a helpless child." It wasn't like starting out with a perfectly healthy baby and doing something deliberately to cause a disability. It was giving a child who already existed, and was already disabled, a chance at life.

Had somebody made that clear to me before the pregnancy scare, I'd have been spared a lot of anguish. And I remain outraged that women are still guilt-tripped into that same anguish I went through. And many of these women end up aborting their children, so they get to live with having killed their children.

But this woman, regardless of whether or not it turns out her baby has a congenital condition, can relax now. She doesn't have to shoulder this burden of thinking she has some responsibility to choose death.

I hope she keeps in touch!

He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And He hears me when I call

Anniversary: Doc implicated in illegal abortion death

Eleanor Haynes, age 22, died at Hackensack Hospital in New Jersey on October 6, 1937, after indicating that Dr. P. Ralph McFeely had performed an abortion on her. Eleanor's fiancee claimed no knowledge of an abortion. McFeely, a school and police physician who was also president of the local PTA, said that although he was treating Eleanor for a "minor ailment," he had not performed an abortion. McFeely was not indicted due to lack of evidence.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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Roundup du jour

'Lake of Fire' takes camera into abortion clinics. The reviewer is clearly on the prochoice side of the fence, referring to abortion as an issue of "reproductive rights"; describing Nat Hentoff as "arguing against abortion" but Noam Chomsky as "supporting a woman's right to choose". But the review is balanced. And the film is not for the faint of heart, and probably not for the staunchly pro-choice: "Concerned that he leave no fragments of an aborted fetus in his patient's uterus, a doctor reassembles the body parts -- tiny feet, arms, a head with a clearly discernible face -- into a nearly intact whole. And the camera never blinks." (HT: Jivin' J)

Here's secular coverage of the DeHenre case, the abortionist turned alleged rapist and wife-killer. (With another tip of the hat to JJ.)

A reminder to those of you stateside: Life Chain is this weekend.

Jivin' J has another of his roundup of ringing endorsements of abortion, including this description of our safe and legal abortion utopia: "The clinic was nothing like I imagined it to be from the website description. It had a very uncomfterable looking cramped sleezy waiting room. There were piles upon piles of women, some huddled into corners, waiting for their appointments. I got called in and filled out a series of forms, than a few other girls and I were huddled into a small room to watch a poorly put together explination of what goes on at Northland Family Planning. After that was done we all moved back into the waiting room of hell. .... The ultra sound showed a cute 8 week 3 day zygote. It looked a little bit to me like Casper the friendly ghost... only the size of a quarter... needless to say I ran back into the waiting room crying. .... The pills were doing crazy things to our bodies. We were all heating up and getting cramps that made us double over onto the dirty floor. We kept racing to the bathroom to puke. Sometimes there would be two girls puking at once. .... I remember screaming in pain and the nurse telling me to breathe through my nose and out my mouth. .... I saw girls ushered into the room clutching their stomachs and looking like zombies... I could tell they didn't have the twilight sedation. .... Krys wanted to see the ultra sound, but since he wasn't allowed back with me, they printed out a picture of it and put it in my baggie with my perscriptions and instructions. He could only look at it for a short time, it hurt him very deeply. Since we got home he has been crying."

And HT to Ashli for linking to the letter of 20/20 hindsight. And we're monsters for tying to spare women regret like this.

An interview with The Raving Atheist

Even a "Raving Atheist" Can Be Pro-Life - Interview

Is it lonely being a pro-life atheist? Learn the answer to this and other questions.

Safe and legal anniversary: Pre-Roe

"Becky" was 18 years old when she traveled from Arkansas to New York for a safe and legal abortion. She was 14 weeks pregnant. The abortion was performed on September 26, 1971. Though she was running a fever the day after the abortion, staff discharged her to return home. By the time Becky got back to Arkansas and saw a doctor, her condition was critical. She died from infection on October 5.
********

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Read complaints against Tiller and associates

Christian News Wire is making available two complaints filed against Teflon Tiller and his associates.

Michelle Armesto spoke out last month about an abortion performed on her at 24 weeks, under duress, by Shelley Sella at Tiller's facility in 2003. Michelle said that Sella initiated the abortion prior to performing an examination or obtaining signed consent, among other violations. A PDF of the text of the complaint is here. It reads:

Michelle Berge, (now Michelle Armesto), received an abortion at Women's Health Care Services (WHCS), an abortion office owened by George R. Tiller, on May 13, 2003, while she was 18 years of age and in her 24th week of pregnancy. Ms. Armesto will be referred to in the narrative below as "the patient."

The patient told an interim legislative committee on September 7, 2007, that she did not want the abortion and only reluctantly went along after days of intense pressure and threats from her mother and father where she was caused to fear the loss of their love and permanent expulsion from their family. She received further pressure to abort from a WHCS employee during a phone call that the patient's mother had arranged.

The patient and her mother became lost on the way to the abortion clinic and arrived approximately one-and-a-half to two hours later for her appointment. Upon arrival, she was placed immediately into a group with several other women also receiving late-term abortions, who were in the process of watching a video about the Tiller abortion legacy.

From there, without having spoken to anyone or signed any paperwork, including a medical history and consent forms, the patient was taken to a room with an ultrasound machine. She asked to see the viewing screen but was prevented from doing so by the clinic worker who performed her ultrasound. At approximately 11:10 AM, Tiller employee abortionist Shelley Sella, using the ultrasound imaging to guide her, administered a digoxin injection through the patient's abdomen that was supposed to go into her baby's heart. The patient was led to believe that the injection immediately killed her child.

After receiving the injection, the patient was sent to the receptionist to fill out her medical hisotry and consent forms, which were signed at 11:50 AM, 40 minutes after the abortion proess was begun and drugs administered. There was no effort before the injection to insure that the patient was over 18, or that she suffered from any kind of condition that would meet the legal requirement of "substantial and irrerversible impairment," either physically or mentally, for an abortion after 21 weeks. The legal requirements of a 24-hour waiting period and a private meeting with the physician who would be doing her abortion were not met. At no time was she asked medical questions by the clinic staff, but was asked questions only of a social nature.

She was given an injection of lidocaine at noon and then her cervix was inserted with laminaria sticks. She was then sent back to her hotel.

The following day, on May 14, 2003, the patient returned to Women's Health Care Services. At around 9:45 fetal heart tones were detected and the patient's abdomen was given a second injectino of digoxin with a notation to recheck for fetal heart tones at 1600 hours.

This indicates that the first injection given on the 13th before consent was obtained, was improperly administered since it apparently missed the baby's heart and failed to kill the baby.

The patient had been contacted by her finace the evening before. He asked her to change her mind about the abortion. The patient did not believe that was possible because she erroneously believed that at that time, her baby was already dead.

The patient indicated that she told family and the clinic staff that she did not want the abortion, but was coerced into the abortion and signing the consent forms due to pressure from her family and the clinic staff.

In the three to four minutes that she spent with Tiller during her three-day stay, he told her that if one of his children were in her situation, he would have her get an abortion as well. Another clinic worker told the patient that if she had the baby, her life would be over and that she would never be ale to go to college.

The patient, a Catholic convert, believes she was given false information at the clinic by a Unity Church minister who told her that abortions were accepted by the Catholic Church, which she later discovered was not true. He told her that God would forgive her for her abortion, but he never asked her questions or even inquired about how she was doing. When the patient later discovered that she had been given false informatoin about the teachings of the Catholic Church on abortion at WHCS, it caused her emotional pain.

The patient delivered at the abortion clinic on the third day of the procedure. She refused to deliver her baby into a toilet bowl, as ordered by clinic workers. She felt that pushing her baby into a toilet was a demeaning and grossly inappropriate thing to ask her to do. Instead she delivered her dead baby on the floor next to the commode, a sight that still haunts her to this day.

The patient's medical records show blanks that require the signature of "nurse witness." These blanks were signed or initialed by Tiller employee Edna Roach, who has no nursing license or any kind of medical license on file with the State of Kansas, and is unqualified to act in the capaity of a nurse. This should be investigated as possible criminal fraud.

None of Tiller's workers hold valid nursing licenses of any type, nor do they hold any other kind of medical licensing in the State of Kansas, with the exception of his three hired out-of-state abortionists, Shelley Sella, LeRoy Carhart, and Susan Ribonson. However, the unlicensed medical workers, including Edna Roach, Cathy Reavis, and Stacey Pack appear to pass themselves off as "nurses" and perform the duties of a licensed nurse, even though there were not at that time qualified to do so.

One meployee of WHCS, who initialed parts of the patient's medical chart was Stacey Carmen Pack (initials SCP on the charts). Records obtained from the Kansas State Board of Nursing indicate that she was originally licensed as an LPN in Kansas on August 25, 2005. At the time of the patient's abortion on May 13-15, 2003, Pack had no such license. Ms. Pack is no longer employed by WHCS.

Because the patient's motehr was set to graduate from college the following day, the patient was released a day earlier than she normally would have been released, with the verbal promise that she would seek follow-up care in one week. However, because of the turmoil in her family and embarrassment over her abortion, she did not get follow-up care. She stated that Tiller's office never called her in follow-up to ask how she was or if she had indeed made the follow-up appointment. She received no follow-up care whatsoever from WHCS.

Earlier this year, the patient requested her medical records from Women's Health Care Services and was shocked to larn that her 24-week baby had been diagnosed as "not viable" by Sella. The patient was a healthy 18-year-old in perfect health that did not drink, smoke, or do drugs. She had no reason to believe, and had been given no reason to believe, that her baby was anything but healthy. No basis was givn on which the determination of non-viability was made.

A CD with Michelle Armesto's full testimony before the interim legislative committee on September 7, 2006, is included herein.

Michelle Armesto gave me (Troy Newman) permission to file this complaint and released her medical records to me for the purpose of inclusion in this complaint. A copy of her medical record is also included at her request.

A "Summary of Allegations" follows the narrative, including noting that the informed consent document says that Dr. Sella gave Michelle information at least 24 hours prior to initiating the abortion. But Michelle never saw Sella until she did the injection to try to kill the fetus, forty minutes prior to Michelle being given the consent form to sign.

The consent form also says that the patient met with the physician prior to the abortion, or any phsical or chemical preparation therefore, and said "I had adequate opportunity ... to ask questions and obtain information." But, as Newman points out, "The patient clearly did not meet privately with Sella at any time before the abortion procedure began, and only signed this form 40 minutes after the abortion had been initiated...."

"Michelle's abortion procedure was begun without having taken a proper medical history. Her medical history was obtained only after a digoxin injection... was administered."

The second digoxin injection notation is initialled by "CR", who is most likely Cathy Reavis, who was unlicensed and not qualified to perform an injection of any kind.

No physician whatsoever signed any documentation, as required by law for abortions past 21 weeks, that there was any danger to Michelle's life or that she might suffer impairment.

Sella documented Michelle's fetus as "not viable," though the estimated weight was between 593 and 675 grams. Babies born over 500 grams have a better than 50% survival rate. (On a personal note, my friend's baby weighed less than 500 grams and she's now a healthy 8-year-old.) Michelle believes that since she was late, she didn't get to meet with Kristen Neuhaus, who at that time was rubber-stamping all of Tiller's abortion patients as having some variety of medical necessity. Since Michelle had been late, she missed processing by Neuhaus and Sella had to fudge the records to get past the lack of a second physician's signature.

The PDF of a complaint against Tiller and Krisin Neuhaus was filed in October of 2006 and is available here. It includes the criminal complaints filed against Tiller for illegal late abortions:

Count One: On July 22, 2003, Tiller performed an about on a 14 year old patient who was 26 weeks pregnant, relying on a diagnosis of Anxiety Disorder Not Otherwise Specified or Adjustmen Disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed mood. This hardly constitutes a "substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function."

Count Two: On July 22, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a patient who was 29 weeks pregnant, reporting the fetus as being not viable but not having any basis for the determination. Nor was their any determonation of what health problem in the mother that supposedly necessitated the abortion.

Count Three: On July 8, 2003, tiller performed an abortion on a 10-year old patient who was 28 weeks pregnant. The girl had been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode.

Count Four: On July 8, 2003, tiller performed an abortion on a 28-weeks pregnant woman without determining fetal viability. There was no note of any medical condition of the mother.

Count Five: On July 15, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a 15-year-old girl who was 28 weeks pregnant. She had a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode.

Count Six: On July 15, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a patient who was 28 weeks pregnant. There was no note of any medical condition of the mother.

Dount Seven: On November 18, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a 16-year-old who was 29 weeks pregnant. She had a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode.

Count Eight: On November 18, 2003, Tiller did an abortion on a patient who was 29 weeks pregnant, without any basis for the abortion documented.

Count Nine: On July 30, 2003, Tiller performed an abotion on a 19-year-old patient who was 27 weeks pregnant, relying on a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode.

Count Ten: On July 30, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a patient who was 27 weeks pregnant, diagnosing the fetus as non-viable but with no indication of how this was supposedly determined.

Count Eleven: On August 19, 2003, Tiller performed an aboriton on a 22-year-old patient who was 31 weeks pregnant, relying on a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode.

Count Twelve: On August 19, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a patient who was 31 weeks pregnant, without any documentaion of what the supposed medical justification was.

Count Thirteen: On August 5, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a 15-year-old girl who was 26 weeks pregnant, based on a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode.

Count Fourteen: On August 5, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a woman who was 26 weeks pregnant, without any documentaion of the supposed medical justification.

Count Fifteen: Blurred, referring to an abortion on August 5, 2003.

Count Sixteen: Blurred, so I can't determine the date of the abortion. The patient was 28 weeks pregnant. There was no documentation of the supposed medical justification for the abortion.

Count Seventeen: On August 12, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a 15-year-old girl who was 25 weeks pregnant, based on Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode.

Count Eighteen: On August 12, 2003, Tiller perfomed an abortion on a woman who was 25 weeks pregnant, not documeting the alleged medical justification.

Count Nineteen: On August 19, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a 15-year-old who was 26 weeks pregnant, based on a diagnosis of Acute Stress Disorder. (A refreshing departure from the standard Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode.)

Count Twenty: On August 19, tiller performed an abortion on a patient who was 26 weeks pregnant, without documenting the supposed medical justification.

Count Twenty One: On November 4, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a 15-year-old girl who was 25 weeks pregnant on the basis of a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode.

Count Twenty Two: On November 4, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a patient who was 25 weeks pregnant, wihtout any documentation of the supposed medical justification.

Count Twenty Three: On August 26, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a 14-year-old patient who was 25 weeks pregnant, based on a diagnosis of Acute Stress Disorder. (I guess they decided to vary the mental health diagnoses instead of using the same one again and again and again.)

Count Twenty Four: On August 26, 2003, Tiller did an abortion on a woman who was 25 weeks pregnant without documenting the alleged medical justification.

Count Twenty Five: On September 9, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a 15-year-old girl who was 25 weeks pregnant, reverting to Major Depressive Disorder, Single Episode.

Count Twenty Six: On September 9, 2003, Tiller did an abortion on a 25 weeks pregnant woman, wihout documeting whatever her supposed health problem was.

Count Twenty Seven: On November 4, 2003, Tiller did an abortion on an 18-year-old patient who was 25 weeks pregnant. This one was Anxiety Disorder Not Otherwise Specified or Acute Stress Disorder, which we'd not seen for what, a year now?

Count Twenty Eight: On November 4, 2003, Tiller did an abortion on a woman who was 25 weeks pregnant, without documeting whatever her medical problem was supposed to be.

Count Twenty Nine: On Nobember 4, 2003, Tiller did an abortion on a 13-year-old girl who was 25 weeks pregnant, based on no established diagnosis whatsoever.

Count Thirty: On November 4, 2003, Tiller performed an abortion on a patient who was 25 weeks pregnant, stating that the fetus was not viable but not saying how this was supposedly determined.

The complaint filed with the medical board includes a copy of an email a woman called "Janice" sent to Troy Newman, indicating that were the Board to want to contact the woman to verify her story, they woudl be provided with this information:

I do however agree with you on one thing now, and that is that Dr Tiller's abortion clinic should be closed. After some deep soul searching and many sleepless nights up thinking about hte care I recieved there, I agree it's not right. I live in Canada, a country with some of the world's best health care, adn free health care at that. I think I was so grateful to him [abortionist George R. Tiller] because he was able to terminate a pregnancy for me becaues I couldn't face the results of that pregnancy.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not some girl off the street who got pregnant and decided in my third trimester that all of the sudden I was not ready to be a parent. I was newly married had a new home and had been helpoing raise my stepson since he was 6 months old. We were beyond elated to be having this baby we loved her from the minute we found out she was coming. We had the nursery all painted and basically we were waiting.

I was due to have her on the 15th of January, 2004. It wasn't until the 23rd of December that it was noticed that there was something wrong during a routine ultrasound. The next day (Christmas Eve) me and my husband were sent to [a] hospital They [the hospital] have the best prenatal diagnosis and medical genetics program in the country. It was then, after a bunch of tests, that they were able to tell me that our daughter, whom we were expecting in less then a month, more then likely had Complete Trisomy 22, a condition incompatable with life.

An MRI the day after Christmas confirmed that this was true. I was then faced with two decision: I could wait and deliver at any time and watch my child expire before my eyes while I stood there helplessly and did nothing, or I could go see this doctor in Wichita who would terminate my pregnancy for me so that I would not have to go through taht. I was distraught. I didn't know what to do and I let others sway me into going to see him. Now I don't know what these procedurs normally cost being that we have free health care here but Dr. Tiller charged 19000 Dollars US. OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) paid for it, of course, and then all I had to pay for was my flight and accommodations and to have the body of my daughter sent back to [Canada] for a full autopsy.

Now most of my trip to Kansas is a blur. This is because from the time you arrive at Dr. Tiller's clinic, you are on some form of drugs. You're in a daze. Though I remember a lot, there is a lot I don't remember. I will never however forget the day I was given the digoxin shot through my stomach into the heart of my baby. It took me 45 minutes to calm down enough so that DR. Tiller and one of his nurses (sic) could come in to do this. I was hysterical because after this there was no turning back. By telling them I was ready for them to come in and do it, I was telling them that it was okay to kill my daughter. They sedated me and then did it. (Emphesis mine -- CED)

Now I have spoken to many other women who have been to Dr. Tiller's clinic. NONE of them were sedated for the procedure. I woke up and my baby was dead. After that I was given a prescription for a drug called "Pentazocine," while all the other women were given a rpescription for something similar to TYLENOL #3.

I was then sent to have laminaria packed up into me. While inserting the laminaria they broke my water "accidentlly." I was then shipped off to the La Quinta where my labour began.

It's now 6 pm the clinic is closed for the day and I'm in pretty intense labour. My contractions were less then 5 minutes apart. My motehr, who was with me at the time, called down to Edna's room. (-Ed. Note: This is Tiller employee Edna Roach.] Edna told my mom to give me 2 pills, then one every hour. After that I didn't know my left from my right. After a few hours I was to the point wehre I was begging my mother for no more pills. I was in excruciating pain and I was vomiting from the pills. I had this HORRIBLE pain in my cervix that to this day I can't explain. (To this day, I still experience that pain from time to time.) My mother called Edna serveral more times sh finally came down to my room and examined me on the hotel bed and said I was fine. [Ed. note: Edna is not a nurse or in any way a licensed health professional. - CED] Then she gave me another shot that sedated me. The pain was so intense that when it would come I sould come out of the sedation and pass back out. This persisted for several hours until the sedation wore off.

By this time it was about 1 am and my contractions were one minute apart. My mom called Edna sevaral times screaming at her. She then came again and gave me another shot and sedated me. All the while I was still taking the pills every hour on the hour. By the time the second round of the sedation had worn off, I could no longer stand because of the drugs and because of the extreme pressure on my pelvis.

I remember saying I needed to go to a hospital I didn't care about Dr. Tiller's clinic. I needed another doctor. My mom was crying and she ran into the hall. When she opened the door. the man in the next room heard me crying and screaming. He was a doctor. I thought I was saved! Turns out the doctor in the next room was [Tiller abortionist] Dr. [LeRoy] Carhart. He had just arrived and checked into the hotel. He came in and examined me. Immediately he called Edna and the exchanged some harsh words and he said I needed to go to the clinic NOW.

I had to be carried out to the van. Both me and my mother [were] in the back seat. Dr. Carhart and Edna [were] in the front. My mother and I had to listen to Edna's rap music the whole way there, which I found highly unprofessional. At this piont, [my mother and I] were both, like, what did we get ourselves into? What kind of clinic is this? I left the hotal at 5:15 am by the time I got to Dr. TIller's clinic (they brought me in through [Tiller's private] garage) they registered me, undressed me, sedated me, and I delivered my child. It was 6 am, 45 minutes [after I arrived at the clinic.]

I do remember a few minor things about the delivery, but because of the anesthetic, I hardly remember anythign at all. I was sent back to the hotel at 9 am. I returned to the clinic around 10 am the next day for a "checi-up." It was at this time I was allowed to hold my daughter and have her baptized. They recommended I did not look at her becaues of all the disfigurements she had due to the Trisomy 22. They suggested it would be better for me to just think of her as the perfect little baby I had imagined she would be.

Now when you first get to teh clinic you get a check list of things you can ask for, [for example] the baby blanket, hand and foot prints, pictures, etc. I asked for these things and they told me they would mail them to me. I was hysterical. I just needed somethign to hold onto. I threw a fit in a waiting room (a waiting room I had never seen before). It was FULL of people. All of a sudden, they brought me my stuff. It seemed to me as soon as my abortion was over they couldn't wait to get rid of me.

[Tiller employee] Sarah Phares and [former abortion chaplain] Reverend Gardner [-Ed. Note: Gardner is now deceased.] however were there for me and consoled me to the best of their abilities. I now see that the medical care I received there was the worst kind of medical care one could ever [have] received.

Now my story is almost over, but there is a little more to it. The prescription I was given there had a refull on it, but it cost 75 dollars US to fill this so I figured I would wait until the next day when I got home to refill this prescription because it would only cost me 35 cents. (I have a medical plan.) So I had been home for 2 days and had not slept. I was vomiting I had nosebleeds, the shakes, the sweats, and uncontrollable spasms. I thought this was because of stress, so I went to see my doctor and he wanted to run tests. I agreed. On my way out his door I remembered my prescription so I gave it to him and asked for the refill. He looked at me with a very strange look on his face and asked me to sit down. He explained to me that this drug was ilelgal in Canada and he could not give it to me, and that basically it was synthetic heroine (sic). And he couldn't believe the amount of milligrams in eachpill. I then explained to him that I was told to take 2 then one every hour. He then did a quick blood test and it confirmed that the levels of pentazocine in my system now -- let alone 2 days ago -- should have killed me. I was not having all these symptoms from stress. They were my body's way of trying to detox me.

Am am no longer grateul for Dr. Tiller "helping me." He didn't hel pme at all. I wish now I would [have] had the courage to deliver my little girl and let her get even just one breath or air before she passed, to let her see my face just once before she passed. I will never have that chance now and I will always have to live with thedecison I made and the nightmares of what happened to me in Kansas. All I have now is my little 6 lb. 2 oz. daughter's ashes in a tiny silver engraved box in my living room. I have a small box of picturs and footprints and a receiving blanket with green goop on it that I can't bring myself to wash because I think it will wash her away. I still cry every day and I miss her every day. Dr. Tiller didn't help me. He robbed me and I let him. Women need to know what goes on there. People need to be eduated on what goes on inside his clinic.

Oh -- and Tiller's a member of the National Abortion Federation.



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Abortionist to be tried for rape, murder

Mississippi Abortion Practitioner's Trial Begins on Rape, Murder Charges

A Mississippi abortion practitioner who has pleaded not guilty to charges that he killed his wife 10 years ago and raped a patient five years before that saw his trial begin Thursday. Malachy DeHenre, who is 56, has lost his medical licenses in various states because of botched abortions.
Six years ago a jury failed to convict DeHenre in the shooting death of his wife Dr. Nyasha Rose DeHenre. A gunshot to the head while she was in the couple's home resulted in her death.

DeHenre was re-indicted on the charges when new evidence came to light, arrested last December and ordered held without bond.

Local authorities have filed new indictments in the case saying they have more evidence to prove DeHenre's guilt. They also filed a second charge accusing the abortion practitioner of raping a 21-year-old patient in March 1992.

DeHenre was working at Summit Medical Center of Alabama, a National Abortion Federation member facility, when he performed a fatal abortion on Leigh Ann Stephens Alford on November 25, 2003. DeHenry sent her home despite a uterine perforation, and she died 18 hours later. (More on Summit here.)

A little more research might be in order

An anonymous poster commented on an abortion death:

He worked wonders for me! I'm sure abortions were far more dangerous in 89 then they are now. I've seen websites that record women who died from abortions and I can't seem to find any after 92'. Just saying.

First of all, a dead fetus hardly constitutes "working wonders." They're fairly fragile and don't seem to be that hard to kill. He "didn't do me any particular damage that I'm aware of" may be a more accurate assessment.

As for the no deaths after 1992, just from my own records I've culled the cases below. I excluded the suicide deaths.

1993:

Andrea Corey, sent home with retained tissue by a clinic she'd been referred to by Planned Parenthood. Died of sepsis.

Jane Doe of Newark, bled to death from a perforated uterus, leaving a 4-year-old boy with out a mother.

Giselene Lafontant went into cardiac arrest and died.

Kathy McNight died of a pulmonary embolism.

Guadalupe Negron bled to death under such appalling circumstances that her safe and legal abortionist ended up going to prison.

Angela Sanchez was injected with drugs by a clinic owner pretending to be a doctor. When she died the clinic owner sent her kids home without her and tried to dump the body in the trunk of Angela's own car.

1994:

Pam Colson bled to death in the back seat of her friend's car on the ride home from her safe and legal abortion.

Alerte Desanges was badly resuscitaed after going into cardiac arrest. She died under the care of a guy who the clinic was "rehabilitating" after he'd lost his license due to selling controlled substances to pay off gambling debts.

Fourteen-year-old Jammie Garcia had her fetus shoved into her bowel and left there. She died while doctors were trying to determine the cause of the obstruction.

Christina Mora died at a National Abortion Federation member facility after her abortionist rushed through a 17-week abortion in just three minutes.

Fifteen-year-old Sara Niebel was sent home with bits of infected fetal bone lodged in her brain; she contracted meningitis and died as a result.

Magdalena Rodriguez was slashed up internally then allowed to bleed out on the clinic floor.

Ingrid Thomas died of peritonitis.

1995:

Lisa Bardsley was discharged with a massive uterine laceration. She bled to death.

Linda Boom was subjected to a dangerous, antiquated technique and died of salt poisoning.

1996:

Carolina Gutierrez died of sepsis, despite the amputation of her gangrenous limbs to try to save her life.

Sharon Hamplton bled to death, her 3-year-old son in her arms, in the back seat of her mother's car on the drive home from her safe, legal abortion.

I have few details on what happened to Chivon Williams beyond the fact that trusting Alberto Hodari to do her abortion cost her her life.

Tanya Williamson was inadequately monitored in recovery then inadequately resuscitated.

1997:

Sixteen-yar-old Maureen Espinoza died after a safe, legal abortion in Texas.

Tammy Harris was too weak to walk, so they shoved her out of the clinic in a wheelchair and sent her home to die.

Nichole Williams was the third patient I know of who died after an abortion by Robert Crist.

1998:

Tamika Dowdy died in New York under mysterious cicumstances following her safe and legal abortion.

Lou Anne Herron begged and pleaded for staff to help her as they left her to bleed to death in their inadequately staffed recovery room.

Kendra McLeod was sent home to bleed to death.

Venus Ortiz finally died five years after being left in a coma by her safe and legal abortion at a National Abortion Federation member.

Virginia Wolfe was slashed up internally and bled to death.

1999:

Shelby Moran died after her abortion left her incapacitated for years in a nursing home, unable to care for her five children.

"Yvonne" died of sepsis.

2000:

L'Echelle Head died of mysterious causes after her safe and legal abortion.

Kimberly Neil became the tenth patient I know of who died after an abortion at National Abortion Federation member Family Planning Associates Medical Group.

Nicey Washington died of sepsis.

2002:

Planned Parenthood sent Diana Lopez home to bleed to death.

"Adelle" was inadequately monitored and allowed to languish in the recovery room, resulting in her death.

Brenda Vise was given abortion drugs in an off-label manner, then instructed not to seek help for her symptoms of ruptured ectopic pregnancy. As a result, she died.

2003:

Leigh Ann Alford was sent home to bleed to death by her doctor at a National Abortion Federation member clinic.

Holly Patterson was given abortion drugs in an off-label manner by Planned Parenthood, and died of sepsis.

Ditto for Vivian Tran.

2004:

Chanelle Bryant was given abortion drugs in an off-label manner by a National Abortion Federation Member. She died of sepsis.

Fifteen-year-old Tamia Russell bled to death after an illegal third-trimester abortion was performed on her by a National Abortion Federation member clinic.

2006:

Christin Gilbert (pictured), a 19-year-old mentally disabled rape victim, died of sepsis after what was probably an illegal third-trimester abortion at National Abortion Federation member George Tiller's infamous mill in Wichita.

Oriene Shevin was given abortion drugs in an off-label manner and died of sepsis.

2007:

Edrika Goode died of sepsis after a nurse at Planned Parenthood inserted laminaria despite clear evidence of a vaginal infection.

Laura Smith died on the abortion table just last month. We're still waiting to find out why.

I'm guessing that the reason some people don't see any abortion deaths after 1992 is that Kevin Sherlock published his "Abortion Death Log" in 1991, and Kevin's groundbreaking research is the core of most of the death lists that are out there on the net. Kevin also published two books on his abortion malpractice research, The Scarlet Survey and Victims of Choice. You can buy them on Amazon.com
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The big yawn

Abortion advocates who are keening the death of Rosie Jimenez would do well to remember that the CDC counted 17 women who died from safe and legal abortions that same year. I have only been able to find details on five of those deaths:

On December 2, 1977, 29-year-old Jackie Bailey was injected with saline by Dr. Eboreime for an abortion at Pacific Glen Hospital in Los Angeles County. Five hours after Jackie expelled the dead baby, her condition appeared grave. Shortly after midnight, she was transferred to Memorial Hospital of Glendale. Doctors at Memorial suspected a uterine laceration, so they performed exploratory surgery. The bleeding was so profuse that they then performed a hysterectomy in a last-ditch attempt to save her life. Jackie died just before sunrise on December 3. The autopsy report found that Jackie's uterus had ruptured during the abortion, and that her uterine artery had been lacerated. She had bled to death from her injuries.

Eighteen-year-old newlywed Barbaralee Davis was referred to a member of the newly-founded National Abortion Federation. They sent her home with the face and spinal column of her fetus embedded in a rip in her uterus. She bled to death.

Louchrisser Jackson, a 23-year-old mother of five, was 12 weeks pregnant when she went to Dr. Robert L. Gardner for an abortion at Reproductive Services in Dallas on November 4, 1977. Louchrisser began hemorrhaging. Gardner said that he ordered blood for a transfusion, but it didn't arrive so about an hour before her death he attempted to give her a transfusion with his own blood -- which turned out to be an incompatable type. Louchrisser died that day. The autopsy found massive hemmorage of at least two liters of blood, and a "1.8 x 2 cm. ragged perforation in the right lateral wall just above the internal os of the cervical canal. This perforation commonicates freely with the retroperitoneal space on the right side. The endometrial surface of the uterus is ragged and hemorrhagic."

Mary Ann Page was 36 years old when she went into cardiac arrest during an abortion/tubal ligation performed under general anesthesia on December 28, 1977. Both procedures were completed, then Mary Ann was taken to the Intensive Care Unit. Mary Ann suffered several more cardiac arrests while she was in the ICU. She was pronounced dead on December 29, 1977.

Mary Paredez was 26 years old when she underwent an abortion at San Jose Hospital on April 19, 1977. During the procedure, Mary's uterus was perforated. She began to hemorrhage. Less than seven hours later, she was dead. The autopsy found 2500 cc of blood in Mary's abdomen.

Why was Rosie's death an unacceptable tragedy, and these women's deaths nothing but a big fat collective yawn?

PS. Does anybody have a copy of the CDC's 1978 Abortion Surveillance Annual Report? I have this quote:

We found no significant change in the number and proportion of publicly funded hospitalizations for complications of illegal or spontaneous abortions, but we did find a marked decrease in publicly funded hospitalizations for complications of legal abortions, from 19 (38%) to 2 (6%).

I realized that I didn't make clear -- least of all to myself -- what original data they were reflecting on. And I don't have my Abortion Surveillance Reports here in Korea with me.
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Mark your calendars

We're gonna have to check some predictions.

$700,000 cut hits hard at Planned Parenthood

A $700,000 cut in funds will have "devastating" effects on West Michigan women, Planned Parenthood officials say.

Reproductive health centers in White Cloud and Hart were closed Monday, with plans to close centers in Grand Rapids, Muskegon and Mount Pleasant by the end of the year.

Now, here comes the hysteria:

Humphrey predicted the centers' closings and reductions at other locations will have an economic and social snowball effect that will be felt for years to come.

She foresees an increase in unintended pregnancies, which research correlates with abortion, higher infant mortality rates and low birth-weight babies. Without access to care, sexually transmitted diseases are likely to go untreated, she said.

"You are going to see an increase in school dropouts. You are going to see an economic impact," she said.

How long do you think is an adequate follow-up? Five years? I can mark my calendar and we can check.

What I do know is that states that get high grades from Planned Parenthood have high rates of abortion, STD, etc., while states that get low grades from PP have low rates of abortion, STDs, etc. Is correlation causality? Does removing PP from a community reverse the trend toward more abortions and STDs? Or is the presence of PP just a symptom?

HT: JJ

Anniversary: The death of Rosie Jimenez

In 1977, the Hyde Amendment went into effect, banning the use of Federal funds to pay for abortions except to save the mother from an immediate threat to her life. The measure was named for its author, Congressman Henry Hyde. Abortion advocates had been keening from the moment the Hyde Amendment was up for vote. They painted a ghastly picture of coathanger-impaled women littering the streets as poor women were driven to desperation by lack of "access." So when the Hyde Amendment went into effect, abortion advocates sat back and waited for a death, any death, they could hang around Henry Hyde's neck.

On October 3, 1977, the abortion advocacy vultures got what they'd been waiting for: a dead woman they could use as leverage in the fight to once again force taxpayers to fund elective abortions.

On September 26, 1977, 27-year-old Rosie Jiminez had showed up at the emergency room of McAllen General Hospital in the Texas border town of McAllen, with septic shock. She was put in intensive care, but died on October 3 from renal and cardiac failure caused by disseminated intravascular coagulopahty triggered by gas gangrene from a criminal abortion. She left behind one child.

Rosie had already undergone two abortions at taxpayer expense. The first time, she had not been using contraception, and a private ob/gyn in McAllen aborted her 9-week fetus on July 15, 1975. She went on birth control pills after this abortion, but quit using them when a physician told her they might impair future fertility. She quickly became pregnant again and had a second tax-funded abortion, this one done at a facility Rosie had been referred to by a local Planned Parenthood, at 11 weeks of pregnancy.

The CDC's investigation after Rosie's death could not determine if she used any form of birth control after this second abortion. She became pregnant yet again. In September of 1977, she suspected that she was again pregnant, and consulted with a cousin and a friend, who told her that Medicaid would no longer pay for elective abortions.

Rosie had also gone to her family physician, Dr. Homer, in McAllen for treatment of pain in her sternum. She mentioned that she might be pregnant. The physician did not arrange for a pregnancy test or discuss her options with her in any way. He simply informed her that Medicaid would no longer pay for abortions, and let it rest at that.

It is interesting to note that in all the finger-pointing following Rosie's death, no prochoicer thought to place any blame on this physician. Evidently he knew about the two previous Medicaid abortions. Why did he consent himself with telling Rosie that there would be no more free abortions? A referral seemed to have been in order, either to a prolife center that would help her with the expenses of continuing the pregnancy, or to the local Planned Parenthood, that could arrange an abortion on a sliding scale and could possibly help her tap into private funds for elective abortions. Dr. Homer, in fact, was very much in favor of abortions and was aware the Dr. C performed them and Planned Parenthood referred for them on a sliding scale.

Regardless, Rosie's physician just dropped the news -- no more tax-funded abortions -- and effectively abandoned his patient.

The week of September 19, Rosie went to Mexico for some sort of injection to cause an abortion. She had the shots at a pharmacy, at $5 each. The second injection made her ill, and she abandoned this means of attempting to get rid of the unwanted fetus.

On September 25, she consulted with her cousin, saying that she wanted to find a cheap abortionist quickly. Rosie's cousin brought her to a lay midwife in McAllen, who charged $120 to insert a catheter into Rosie's uterus. Fifteen minutes later, she sent Rosie home. Rosie had pain and cramping upon returning home. Over the next 12 hours, she developed an increasing fever, and had nausea, vomiting, chills, dizziness, and increasing vaginal bleeding.

The next afternoon, Rosie was unable to get out of bed. She asked a friend to take her to the hospital. She was admitted at 5 p.m., roughly 22 hours after the abortion. Rosie lied to the doctors when she was admitted, telling them that she was suffering from leg cramps and abdominal pain, saying that her period had just started and denying an abortion.

She had a fever of 100.8, a rapid pulse of 108, respiration of 24, and a blood pressure of 110/80. These vital signs are an indication that something is wrong, but are not in and of themselves alarming. The physical examination, however, revealed cause for concern. Her abdomen was tender and guarded -- meaning that she tensed up when touched. Her uterus was enlarged and tender, and her cervix was soft and dilated wide enough for doctors to pass a ring forceps inside. She had dark bloody vaginal discharge. These are all signs of a recent terminated pregnancy -- whether by miscarriage or by induced abortion -- with infection and possible retained tissue.

So despite Rosie's insistence that nobody had done anything to terminate her pregnancy, McAllen General's doctors accurately diagnosed a septic incomplete abortion. They did a blood culture and found clostridium perfringens bacteria -- gas gangrene. The doctors immediately put Rosie on intravenous antibiotics and fluids. They also performed a D&C to remove retained tissue from Rosie's uterus. These tissues, also, showed clostridium perfringens infection. They also found placental tissue, confirming their belief that Rosie had indeed been pregnant.

Despite the aggressive treatment, Rosie's condition deteriorated over the next twelve hours. She developed severe jaundice. Her pulse was a racing 160 beats per minute. She developed a rash over her torso and thighs. Her urine output fell, causing the doctors to suspect kidney failure.

More laboratory tests were performed, which led the doctors to believe Rosie was developing disseminated intravascular coagulopahty. They performed a hysterectomy to get rid of the source of the infection. After surgery, her blood pressure was a low 90/60, her pulse a still-rapid 120, and her respirations a panting 30 breaths per minute.

Within six hours of surgery, Rosie's heart failed. A consulting physician recommended intense measures to support Rosie's failing body. Over the next three days, her respiratory problems grew worse, and she was put on a ventillator. Doctors administered medications to correct the clotting failure, antibiotics to attack the infection, and intensive supportive therapy to support her failing organ systems, to no avail. Rosie died on October 3.

What is particularly telling in Rosie's death is that prochoice groups had been very successful in spreading the word that public funding for abortion had been cut -- Rosie's friend and cousin, as well as her physician, were well aware of this fact -- but they had not managed to also pass out the word that Planned Parenthood referred for abortions on a sliding scale, and that private funds were available. It's almost as if the public-relations departments of Planned Parenthood and other abortion-advocacy groups had deliberately increased the odds of a tragedy like Rosie's death in order to provide the corpses needed in order to prop up a drive to restore tax monies to abortion facilities.

The initial abortion lobby response to news of Rosie's death was little short of euphoric. They had their trophy, their dead woman whose story they could leverage, they hoped, into the restoration of tax money flowing into abortion clinics.

One voice stood out from the crowd: Ellen Frankfort, author of Rosie: the investigation of a wrongful death. Frankfort was disgusted with the bulk of the prochoice movement, who seemed content to make note of the death and then milk it for political gain. Frankfort was particularly disgusted with the response of public health officials, who made no effort to close down the illegal abortion practice where Rosie had undergone her fatal abortion. Frankfort took it upon herself to orchestrate a sting, with local law enforcement. She coordinated a dramatic raid that put the lay abortionist out of business.

Frankfort also researched other deaths that she blamed on the Hyde Amendment:

A woman in Louisiana who died after she had a friend insert cotton-tipped swabs into her cervix.

Two women in New York (which continued to fund legal abortions) in 1978. Frankfort believes that the women heard publicity about the Hyde Amendment and mistakenly believed that they'd be unable to get funds.

There was indeed a small spike in reported illegal abortion deaths after the Hyde Amendment (from 2 in 1976 to 4 in 1977 to 7 in 1978). But there was likewise a spike in reported legal abortion deaths as well -- a far larger spike, from 11 in 1976 to 17 in 1977.*

Lest prochoicers attribute this jump to women having later abortions because they need time to get funds, we'll note that reported legal abortion deaths fall to 9 in 1978, then leap to 22 in 1979. The trend, in other words, didn't seem to continue.

And although the Hyde Amendment remained in effect, reported illegal abortion deaths fell to 0 in 1979, and remained at 0, 1, 0r 2 per year. Since this is fewer than the 19 in 1979, 6 in 1974, and 4 in 1975, when federal funds were available for elective abortions, it's hard to say that the Hyde Amendment was causing more illegal abortion deaths.

In fact, the CDC's own study, "The Effect of Restricting Public Funds for Legal Abortion," found "no evidence of a statistically significant increase in the number of complications from illegal abortions." In fact, they found that while there was no change in the illegal abortion complications, there was a significant decrease in publicly funded hospitalizations for legal abortion complications in cities where funding was restricted, compared to cities in areas where state or local government picked up the tab for elective abortions. In other words, cutting funds for elective abortions actually had a measurable positive impact on abortion complication rates for Medicaid-eligible women.

So was Rosie's death a fluke? Probably not. The heavy publicity put out by the prochoice movement about how poor women would be "forced" to resort to dangerous criminal abortions probably left Rosie, and some others like her, with the mistaken impression that criminal abortion (rather than birth or even sliding-scale legal abortion) was their only option.

So I'd place the blame for the death of Rosie Jiminez not on the Hyde Amendment, but on several factors:

Readily available public funds for abortion had taught her that she need not be careful about her sexual activity and/or birth control.

Public relations efforts by prochoice groups left women like Rosie with the belief that criminal abortion was their only option.

Rosie's doctor abandoned her, instead of referring her for appropriate counseling and care.

The McAllen midwife was willing to play Russian roulette with women's lives instead of referring them for either prenatal care or low-cost sanitary abortions.

Since she'd never had to pay for her own abortion before, Rosie was apparently unaware that a legal abortion was available for only a few dollars more than what the dirty local midwife was charging.

I agree with abortion advocates that the death of Rosie Jiminez was avoidable. But I disagree with them that lack of public funding was to blame. Prochoice people all around Rosie had opportunities to steer her toward a "safe and legal" abortion, had they chosen to do so. The problem was that nobody ever seemed to entertain the notion that abortion might not be the answer in the first place.

What's additionally puzzling about this whole turn of events is that the facility to which Planned Parenthood referred abortion patients charged only $130 for an abortion for poor women, just $10 more than Rosie paid for the amateur abortion that took her life. It's difficult to believe that a $10 price difference put the legal abortion out of Rosies's reach, espcially since the day before she'd spent $8 on a cake for a friend's baby shower, and she had a $800 scholarship check in her purse.

* I don't believe that the CDC's reported death numbers are accurate, but they're all we have to work with, and more to the point, abortion supporters place great faith in them.
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Another one bites the dust

Hardcore abortion proponents are mourning the passing of Lorraine Rothman, who along with Carol Downer developed and promoted the kind of amateur home abortion that cost a California woman her life in 1990.

It's tragic enough, the damage Lorraine Rothman did to countless women and their unborn children in her lifetime. That she evidently died unrepentant just adds another element.

Pray, pray, pray for aging abortionists and their equally aging cheerleaders.

HT: Jivin' J

A soft answer turneth away wrath

“Are you guys really going to be out here for 40 days?”

I received a long-distance phone call and a young woman's voice began, "Is this the 40 Days for Life hotline number?" Then, with great anger in her voice, she spoke for several minutes with this theme: "I'm a Christian, but I don't know how you people can judge women who are going in for abortions. You don't know anything about them! How dare you!”

This gave me an opening to tell my story, explaining that I had not always been pro-life, but actually helped my best friend obtain an abortion over twenty years ago, because that is what I thought a "best friend" would do. My friend has suffered tremendously, and I am very regretful for not helping her and her baby.

The woman’s anger gave way to sobbing as she described the "choice" she felt forced to make several years ago. "If someone had only helped me... I was so desperate," and "If I had only known how much it would hurt me, every day of my life, I wouldn't have done it". After about 20 minutes of conversation, she was very receptive to my suggestion that she contact Rachel's Vineyard Post-abortion Healing ministry – in Sacramento: (916) 733-0161, or on the Internet at www.rachelsvineyard.org. A call that began with anger turned into a miracle by God's grace.

Well done, good and faithful servant!

Again, equally dead

On October 1, 1922, 21-year-old Margaret Sullivan died in her Chicago home from complications of an abortion performed that day. The person or persons responsible were never caught.

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Brenda Banks was 35 years old and 13 weeks pregnant when she went to Hillcrest Women's Surgi-Center in Washington, DC, for an abortion. The abortion was performed by Llewelyn Crooks on September 30, 1989. Brenda went into shock, and was transported to the hospital by ambulance.

Doctors performed an emergency hysterectomy and transfused Brenda with 20 units of red blood cells, to no avail. She died the following day, October 1, 1989. Brenda's uterus had been perforated and several major blood vessels had been cut or severed entirely.

Her survivors were unable to collect damages from Crooks and Hillcrest because Crooks' insurance company was insolvent, and Hillcrest carried no insurance.

I have been unable to determine if the Hillcrest where Brenda had her abortion is affiliated with the Hillcrest in Pennsylvania where Kelly Morse had her fatal abortion.
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