1986: Shoved out the door to die. Happy New Year.

Eighteen-year-old Sylvia Moore underwent a safe and legal abortion at the hands of Arnold Bickham on New Year's Eve of 1986. She was in the second trimester of her pregnancy, but Bickham used a suction technique suitable for a first-trimester pregnancy. After the abortion, Bickham gave Sylvia repeated injections of Demerol because she was reporting severe abdominal cramps.

According to Sylvia's mother, Sylvia was bleeding, weak, and unable to walk. When Sylvia tried to get to her feet and collapsed, Bickham called her "lazy," put her in a wheelchair, and physically ejected her from his Chicago clinic.

Sylvia's mother took her to a nearby hospital, where staff tried in vain to save Sylvia, who had arrived with no pulse and no blood pressure. An emergency hysterectomy was done to remove her lacerated uterus, which still had a plastic instrument embedded in it. The instrument was embedded in a 6.5 cm laceration, and Sylvia also had a 2.2 cm laceration of her vagina. Sylvia bled to death.

Bickham (pictured) claimed that he "didn't think there was anything wrong" with Sylvia, and said that he'd merely been helping her with the wheelchair. He blamed Sylvia's death on the hospital, saying, "They were successful in repairing the damage done in the abortion, but in doing that, they perforated an artery causing there to be blood loss in the chest cavity. That was something she was not able to survive." The autopsy report, however, noted the chest tube incision but noted "lungs are well expanded and the pleural cavities are free of fluid and adhesions." An attorney with the Department of Professional Regulation said, "This patient would never have been allowed to leave Bickham's clinic with her mother.

The postmortum report said: "The circumstances of injury, review of the Medical records, the findings at autopsy examination, and subsequent investigation of the circumstances of the case provide evidence of gross negligence and abandonment on the part of the original treating physician. In consideration of the above, the manner of death is determined to be Homicide." Had Bickham pulled such a stunt in 1886, he'd have been prosecuted for this homicide. But in the more enlightened, woman-centered post-Roe era, such things simply aren't done. Bickham faced no criminal charges whatsoever for Sylvia's death. (Though he did later face criminal charges for practicing medicine and dispensing prescription medications without a license, albeit without killing anybody. Evidently in our enlightened day it's a far more grave matter to be guilty of a lapse of regulation than it is to kill a teenage girl.)

The suit filed by Sylvia's survivors noted that Bickahm had failed to perform an ultrasound, and failed to have adequate staff or equipment. The specimen of abortion tissue sent from clinic contained segments of placental tissue, umbilical cord, and fetal intestinal parts and liver.

Sylvia left one child motherless.

Those who tsk-tsk over illegal abortion deaths and insist that had those abortions only been legal, the woman would never have been abandoned by her abortionist without care for her well-being might do well to remember Sylvia, shoved out the door in a wheelchair to die. Or Gracealynn Harris or Sharon Hamplton, also too weak to walk, also shoved out the door in wheelchairs and sent home to die. Taking away the fear that screwing up would land them in the hoosegow evidently didn't do much to motivate abortionists to provide adequate care to their patients. It certainly didn't motivate Benjamin Munson, Milan Vuitch or Jesse Ketchum, each of whom had managed to keep his nose fairly clean as a criminal abortionist, only to kill two patients apiece after legalization lowered the stakes in their minds.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1955: The macabre story of Jacqueline Smith

On December 30, 1955, Chester Smith of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, went to New York City to visit his 20-year-old daughter, Jacqueline. She had moved to the city early in the year, over the protests of her parents, taking an apartment with two other women. She had dreams of becoming a fashion designer.

That June, friends had introducted the soft-spken, demure Jacqueline to Thomas G. Daniel, an urbane young salesman of 24. Daniel was well-read, multi-lingual, a poet and gourmet cook. He had come to New York from Warren, Ohio, three years earlier. He worked at an upscale shop selling riding equipment. With his good looks and sophistication, he was able to win over the slender, brown-eyed, small-town girl. She spent more and more time at his apartment, all but moving in with him.

When Chester Smith arrived for his holiday visit, he found that Jacqueline had been missing since Christmas Eve. He got Daniel and together they went to the police to report her missing. The police were quickly suspicious of Daniel and began to question him more closely. Daniel finally told police that Jacqueline had gone into the bathroom and stabbed herself to death due to his refusal to marry her, and that he had dumped her body in the Hudson River. At some point in the story, Daniel brought up a 46-year-old scrub nurse named Leobaldo Pejuan.

Police investigated, and found over 800 stolen medical instruments in Pejuan's apartment. The entire story eventually came out.

Sometime earlier in December, Jacqueline told Daniel that she was pregnant. Daniel did not want to marry Jacqueline -- he still had a girlfriend back in Ohio who he preferred. Instead he arranged for Pejuan to perform an abortion at Daniel's apartment on Christmas Eve. After performing the abortion, Pejuan became alarmed at the young woman's condition, and summoned Dr. Ramiro Morales, who told him that Jackie was dead.

Daniel and Pejuan cut Jacqueline's body into pieces and took it to Pejuan's home, where over the next several days they cut into as many as 50 pieces, which they wrapped in Christmas paper and disposed of in trash cans along side streets off Broadway, from 72nd to 80th.

Once police had the story, Pejuan pleaded guilty and testified against Daniel. Daniel's widowed mother attended the entire trial. Chester Smith, too, was there, but left the courtroom when testimony came to describing the dismemberment of his daughter's body.

Pejuan was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison, and Daniel was sentenced to 8 years. His mother went into hysterics upon hearing the verdict, screaming, "God help me. They have taken my lfe, my savings, my son."

Nobody recorded the words of Jacqueline's father as he faced a life without his daughter.

Jacqueline's death brings to my mind the words of Susan B. Anthony:

Guilty? Yes. No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; But oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime!

Legalization has indeed proven a great boon to those who drive women to the desperation that impel them to abortion. I don't see that it's been that great a boon to the women. They're just as dead.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1924: Mystery abortion kills Chicago woman

On December 30, 1924, 21-year-old Agnes Nazar died at Chicago's St. Joseph's Hospital from an abortion performed earlier that day. On January 6, 1925, Rogie Hatal was held by the coroner as the guilty abortionist. Hatal's profession is not listed. Mike Nazar, whose relationship to Agnes is not listed, was arrested as an accessory, as was Sarah Babian. Hatal was indicted for felony murder on February 15, 1925.

In deference to SoMG, who cannot abide if I simply allow my readers to draw their own conclusions:

We don't know enough about Agnes' death to really conclude much, other than that whatever her circumstances, she thought an abortion would fix them. I don't pick and choose which deaths I report. Whether or not I can make a particular argument out of the circumstances surrounding a death isn't a factor in whether or not I consider it significant. Agnes was somebody's daughter, somebody's friend, somebody's wife or lover. That's what matters.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Right on the first guess!

ME: (Reading Fark headline): Guess who Tripp is.

MY DAUGHTER: (Ponders a moment) A Palin?

Well, technically a Johnston, but we get the point.

I suppose it could have been worse. They could have named him Trap or Trade or Trill. But not Trickle because that violates the single-syllable rule.

Anyway, congrats to the happy parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

And good luck with that name, kid.

2003: Planned Parenthood's unorthodox method proves fatal

Hoa Thuy "Vivian" Tran, like Holly Patterson, had gotten drugs for her safe, legal abortion at a Planned Parenthood.

Vivian was 22 years old, and died December 29, 2003, six days into the abortion process. She‘d been given the drugs on December 23 at the Costa Mesa Planned Parenthood facility. The autopsy showed that she died of sepsis.

Vivian‘s husband is suing the drug company, Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernadino Counties, and The Population Council Inc., in Orange County Superiour Court.

Planned Parenthood spokesperson Kimberlee Ward said that PP has "absolute confidence in this method of abortion".This, though they were dispensing the drugs in an unapproved manner. But since Vivian's fetus died, it seems that the abortion was, at least for Planned Parenthood, completely satisfactory.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1987: Abortion triggers fatal embolism

On December 29, 1987, 31-year-old Sheila Watley had a safe, legal abortion at Concerned Women's Center in Houston, Texas. She was 17 weeks pregnant, and had one child. The abortion was performed by Dr. Richard Cunningham. About four minutes into the procedure, Sheila went into cardio-respiratory arrest. She was pronounced dead later that day.

The cause of death was listed as an amniotic fluid embolism, which is when fluid from the uterus gets into the woman's blood stream.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1977: Cardiac arrest during abortion proves fatal

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.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1971: Saline meant to kill baby kills mother as well

"Beth" was 23 years old when she traveled from Massachusetts to New York for a safe, legal abortion in 1971. The abortion was initiated by injecting saline into Beth's uterus. But instead of the amniotic sac, the saline went into Beth's bloodstream. Beth immediately began to have siezures and went into a coma. She was pronounced dead on December 29, 1971.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

The unmistakable, undeniable, clear impact of legalized abortion on maternal mortality

I have a troll (ironically calling itself "reality") who pops in from time to time with raw pregnancy mortality data. So, for the benefit of "reality" and anybody wondering what the point is, I bring you Maternal Death Rates in America in the 20th Century:



This is all maternal deaths, from abortion, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, complications of childbirth, and so forth. You can see that the 20th Century got off to a good start, improving maternal health, but that trend would later level off, and then reverse itself temporarily, before taking the downward trend that would continue for the rest of the century.

Let's look at it again, but this time I'll put a vertical line at Roe vs. Wade, so we can see the clear, unmistakable, undeniable, staggering and spectacular impact ready access to safe, legal abortion had on maternal mortality:



For those of you with a faulty sarcasm detector: Roe didn't even amount to a blip on the line.

For those of you who get your information from abortion lobby "fact sheets" this might come as a bit of a shock. You're accustomed to being told things like: "The legalization of induced abortion beginning in the 1960s contributed to an 89% decline in deaths from septic illegal abortions (15) during 1950-1973." (Courtesy, in this case, of the Centers for Disease Control -- for those of you who had any doubts as to their abortion-praising agenda.)

Let's look specifically at abortion mortality, to see the profound and clear and unmistakable impact of legalization. I marked vertical lines at 1970 (when New York and California became the first states to legalize abortion on demand) and 1973 (when Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion on demand nationwide).



If you're having a hard time spotting it, I'll zoom in a bit on abortion deaths since 1960. Note that I marked New York and California's legalization and Roe vs. Wade for you:



The things put forth by abortion advocacy organizations leave you with the impression that improvement in maternal health in general, and abortion mortality in particular, must be due to the ready availability of legal abortion. But if you look at maternal mortality, as we just did, and look at the legalization of abortion, as we just did, you can see that the dramatic and very laudable drop in maternal death in the 20th Century was achieved with no help whatsoever from the abortion lobby.

To whom is credit actually due, if it is not due to abortionists and abortion agitators? Let's look at some factors.

1. At the turn of the century, many maternal deaths were due to one sad factor: inadequate childhood nutrition. Inadequate calcium and vitamin D, especially for city children, caused ricketts. This meant that women who developed ricketts as children had small and/or malformed pelvises. This caused obstructed labor, a major contributor to high maternal mortality. (This problem persists in developing nations.) In the developed West, the problem of obstructed labor has been virtually eliminated, along with most nutritionally-related complications of pregnancy and childbirth. For this, we should thank:

Public health officials who pushed for vitamin D fortification and pasturization of milk

Farmers who increased the supply of milk and produce.

Agricultural officials who worked to improve the health of farm animals and to improve farm productivity.

Truck drivers and other transportation workers who brought the milk and produce from farm to city.

Inventors and entrepeneurs who made electricity and refrigeration cheap and widely available so that milk, meat, and produce would stay fresh.

Planners and workers who built the highway system and other elements of the transportation infrastructure to facilitate the transport of milk, and fresh meat and produce, from farm to city.

Inventors and entrepeneurs who created jobs and raised the standard of living so that families could afford milk and fresh produce for their children.

Grocers who made all of these products available to consumers.

2. The biggest contributors to the reduction in septic deaths were the unglamorous enterprises of sanitation and hygiene. Less trash in the streets meant fewer rats and other vermin, fewer risks of disease. Running water, sewage treatment, and the widespread use of gas and electric stoves and water heaters made the basic healthy hygiene we take for granted available. For this, we should thank:

City planners who developed strategies for improving cleanliness of our urban areas.

Utility workers who keep our water running and hot.

Sanitation workers who expose themselves to the dangers of garbage-related diseases and in doing so, protect mothers and children.

Waste-management workers of all levels, who have eliminated the ages-old health hazards of, to put it daintily, "grey water."

3. Of course, medical advances played their vital roles. We owe a tremendious debt of gratitude to:

Joseph Lister and others who pioneered antiseptic technique that reduced septic compliations and made c-sections practical.

J.Y.Simpson and other pioneers of anesthesia who made c-sections and other surgery practical.

Ignaz Philip Semmelweiss, whose career was left a shambles by his fight to eliminate childbed fever, and those who took his advice and began the practice of simple hand-washing, which we take for granted, in attending laboring and postpartum women.

Researchers and pharmaceutical companies that made antibiotics, anti-coagulants, and other vital medicines available.

Doctors, nurses, and technicians who developed new medical technologies and worked to make them widely available.

Biomedical companies and workers for making everything from sterile bandages to high-tech monitoring and surgical equipment readily available.

Housekeepers, orderlies, and other non-glamorous but vital workers who keep the medical environment clean and sanitary.

When you reflect on the tremendous advances in public health, especially maternal and neonatal health, of the 20th Century, give credit where credit is due. Remember that it was our fellow citizens, working daily in often thankless and dangerous jobs, who wrought these miracles as much as doctors and medical pioneers. It is thanks to the trash collector, the worker out repairing the electrical lines in bitter weather, the farmer rising before dawn to milk the cows, the stock clerk stacking oranges in the supermarket, that we can so take it for granted that we will survive pregnancy and childbirth, and that our children will outlive their parents. The abortionists and their cheerleaders should learn a little humility.

That's not to say there's not still progress to be made. But we didn't need the abortion lobby to make the stupendous progress that we've made, and nothing they have to offer is likely to help in the future, especially when you consider that the damage abortion can do to a woman's reproductive system increases her risk of complications -- and thus of mortality -- in future pregnancies.

We need to heed the results of mortality studies and take appropriate corrective action -- but these corrective actions will be mostly on a case-by-case basis, of being alert to, and poised to treat, life-threatening complications as they arise. I'd recommend a through check-up for each woman diagnosed pregnant. To avoid offending abortion enthusiasts, we can call the check-ups "initial obstetric examinations" rather than "prenatal check-ups" so as to avoid making the heinous and totally unacceptable presumption that unless the woman says otherwise, she's going to carry to term. These examinations would benefit the woman, regardless of what she chooses to do about the pregnancy, by getting her into the health care delivery system and thus screening for risk factors early on.

Of course, these exams would cost money, and some women are uninsured. A proposal such as John McCain's plan to provide vouchers to purchase health insurance would allow all women to be covered. In the mean time, providers could assist women in getting connected to payment sources they might not be familiar with, or to hook them up with private charities that would help with the expense of the check-up.

And all of this without trying to answer every maternal death with a call for more abortions!

My abortion mortality research to date

For those of you who come in searching for abortion deaths in particular years or decades, I've done the work for you.

Let's start with abortion deaths prior to widespread legalization:

The 19th Century: I have found information on 52 deaths. Of those cases in which I was able to determine who the perpetrator was, 66.67% were performed by doctors.

1900-1909: I was able to find information on 25 deaths. Of those cases in which I was able to determine the profession of the perpetrator, 65.22% were done by doctors.

1910-1919: I was able to find information on 22 deaths. Of those in which I was able to determine the profession of the perpetrator, 93.75% were performed by doctors.

The 1920s: I was able to find 120 deaths. Of those in which I could determine the profession of the perpetrator, 64.95% were done by doctors.

The 1930s: I was able to get information on 38 deaths. Of those where I was able to determine the profession of the perpetrator, 87.50% were performed by doctors. It was in 1936 that sulfa drugs for treating infections were introduced in the United States. The first blood bank in the United States was introduced in Chicago in 1937.

The 1940s: I was able to find information on 17 deaths. Of those where I was able to identify the perpetrator, 73.33% were performed by doctors. It was in the early 1940s that penicillin was first introduced in the United States.

1950s: I was able to find information on 14 deaths. Of those cases in which I was able to determine the profession of the perpetrator, only 27.27% were performed by physicians. I found this breakdown quite surprising, and a departure from the other pre-legalization decades, where physicians were the primary parties responsible for fatal abortions. I am theorizing that there might be some connection between this and the rise in abortion deaths during this decade.

The 1960s: I was able to find information on 12 deaths, 83.33% of which were performed by physicians.

Thus endeth the officially recognized era of "back alley abortion".



And now we enter the era of safe and legal abortion. You can look on the chart below for the impact widespread legalization had on abortion deaths. I marked vertical lines at 1970 (when New York and California became the first states to legalize abortion on demand) and 1973 (when Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion on demand nationwide).



If you're having a hard time spotting it, I'll zoom in a bit on abortion deaths since 1960. Note that I marked New York and California's legalization and Roe vs. Wade for you:

The 1970s: The US government entities charged with counting abortion deaths noted 235 that I was unable to find information about; I noted 5 that these government entities, for all their funding and access to confidential records, missed. During this period, the CDC's researchers did not merely count the deaths that fell on their doorstep. They also sent out letters to emergency, family, and OB/GYN physicians asking for information about abortion deaths. This aggressive seeking out of information on abortion deaths evidently proved fruitful.

The 1980s: The CDC switched to a passive reporting system and started missing more abortion deaths.

The 1990s: Here is where my data collection system lost a major source of information: researcher Kevin Sherlock, who did an extensive study of abortion deaths in the 1980s. Since he did no such study for the 1990s, I have been unable to tap indirectly into the resources Kevin had in the '80s.

Since 2000: The CDC counts only through 2003, counting 25 more deaths than I've been able to find. Again, we see the effects of my having lost the contributions of Kevin Sherlock. But I'm ahead of the CDC in that at least I count abortion deaths after 2003, of which I've found 7.

Now, why am I looking at all these abortion deaths?

It's very important that we understand history. Prochoicers need to grasp that abortion being illegal doesn't mean no alternative but the coathanger, and prolifers need to understand that simply criminalizing abortion isn't enough. Only when we study the impact of laws and attitudes on abortion practice can we develop effective strategies for what most of us agree is a common goal: Reducing abortion. For, as with any other human evil, we can never make it entirely go away.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion Deaths in the 1980s

The Centers for Disease Control deigned to count the following abortion deaths in their most recent Abortion Surveillance Summary, for 2004:



Today I'll summarize the 1980s:

1980: The CDC counts 12 -- 8 legal, 1 illegal, and 2 unknown. I know of 7. So the CDC knows of at least four abortion deaths I'm unaware of.

1981: The CDC counts 9 -- 8 legal and 1 illegal. I have 10 deaths. So I found one that they missed.

1982: They count 12 -- 11 legal and 1 illegal. I have 8 deaths, so I missed at least 4.

1983: They count 12 -- 11 legal and 1 illegal. I have 7 deaths. So I've missed at least 5.

1984: They count 12, all legal. I have 10 deaths.

1985: They count 13: 11 legal, 1 illegal, and 1 "unknown". I have 11 deaths, so I missed at least 2.

1986: They count 13: 11 legal and 2 "unknown". I have 16. So they missed at least 3.

1987: They count 9: 7 legal and 2 illegal. I have 11; 10 legal and one likely illegal, which means that I counted at least three that the CDC missed, but I might have missed an illegal death.

1988: The CDC counts 16 legal and 0 illegal. I have 14. So there are at least two that I don't know about.

1989: The CDC counts 12 legal and 1 illegal. I have 14 legal and 1 illegal. But one of my legal deaths was related to an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, a death that the CDC refuses to lay on the abortionist's door regardless of how irresponsible his failure to diagnose the ectopic was. This means that there is at least one legal abortion death that the CDC failed to so much as notice.





For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in the 1930s

We need some perspective first. All surgery of any sort in the 1930s was done without the aid of modern blood transfusion and antibiotics. All surgery of any sort in the 1930s was riskier than similar surgery today. This is the era where kitchen-table surgery was phasing out in favor of hospital-based surgery. I have an obstetrical nursing textbook from this era that describes how to set up an operating table in the woman's home to perform a c-section.

Blood banks were cutting-edge battlefield medicine just a few years before, and had not yet come into common usage. Blood type compatibility was not yet understood. It wasn't until the late 1930s and early 1940s that things like separating blood products started to come into practice. Antibiotics were not manufactured and used widely until after WWII. (See chart, below)

So keep in mind that things that may seem appalling to us in the early 21st century -- such as performing surgery in one's home -- was not appalling at the time. Things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.

With that said, I can't find any numbers for abortion mortality prior to 1940. It seems that before that, the information available lumps all maternal mortality together, and abortions can't be sorted out. But we can hazard a guess that the numbers were at least as high as they were in 1940. How much higher? It's hard to say.



So our best guess, based on what I've been able to find, is about 1,400 deaths a year from abortions in the late 1920s and early 1930s -- a number that would combine illegal abortions, the rare "therapeutic abortion" performed as a last-ditch attempt to save a dying woman, and miscarriages.

With that established, let's look at some examples of women who died, and who did their abortions. I did breakdowns for 1930, 1932, 1933-1936, 1937, and 1938-1939. I was unable to find any abortion deaths for 1931.

1930: Genevieve Arganbright, Alberta Beard, Ethel Crowell, Evelyn Dellorto, Marie Epperson, Grace Iorio, Dorothy Jasinski, Matilda Kleinschmidt, Sonia Raggins, Jeanette Reder, "Eudora" Roe, and Mary Tulis.

1932: Isobel Ferguson, Ruth Hall, Nancy Jo Lee, Lennis May Roach, Robbie Lou Thompson, and Virginia Syckoff.

1933: "Nina" Roe.

1934: Annette Camoratto, Marian Mills, and Loretta Wilson.

1935: Edith Eschrich, Doris Jones, and Georgia McGill.

1936: Rose Lipner and Katherine DiDonato.

1937: Ruth Haught, Jane Roe of 1937, Jane Roe of Newark, and Eleanor Haynes.

1938: Doris Alexander, Asunta LaRosa, and Mary Ellen Legge.

1939: Jane Roe of Long Beach, Martha Anderson, Barbara Hanson, and Alice Corbett.

Here is the breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've identified for the 1930s:



*Doctor: 73.68%
*Perpetrator or perpetrator's profession unknown: 15.79%
*Other medical professional: 7.89%
*Self: 2.63%

If we just look at the cases in which I was able to determine the profession of the perpetrator, the breakdown looks like this:



*Doctor: 87.50%
*Other medical professional: 9.39%
*Self: 3.13%



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

For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion Deaths 1900-1909

This is the picture the CDC paints in Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Healthier Mothers and Babies of maternal mortality at the beginning of the 20th century:

Maternal mortality rates were highest in this century during 1900-1930. Poor obstetric education and delivery practices were mainly responsible for the high numbers of maternal deaths, most of which were preventable. Obstetrics as a speciality was shunned by many physicians, and obstetric care was provided by poorly trained or untrained medical practitioners. Most births occurred at home with the assistance of midwives or general practitioners. Inappropriate and excessive surgical and obstetric interventions (e.g., induction of labor, use of forceps, episiotomy, and cesarean deliveries) were common and increased during the 1920s. Deliveries, including some surgical interventions, were performed without following the principles of asepsis. As a result, 40% of maternal deaths were caused by sepsis (half following delivery and half associated with illegally induced abortion) with the remaining deaths primarily attributed to hemorrhage and toxemia.

Note, please, that with issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

Maternal mortality rates for the 20th century, according to the CDC, looked like this:



This is all maternal deaths, from abortion, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, complications of childbirth, and so forth. You can see that the 20th Century got off to a good start, improving maternal health, but that trend would later level off, and then reverse itself temporarily, before taking the downward trend that would continue for the rest of the century.

Note also the total lack of even the faintest blip on the trends with the legalization of abortion in the beginning of the 1970s.

With that established, let's look at the sample of cases I've been unable to uncover during the first decade of the 20th Century. I've done a more detailed breakdown of abortion deaths in 1900, 1901, and 1902-1909. Please note that these cases are chosen purely because I could find information about them, and not because I thought a particular woman's story made a particular political point. Here I will just give the woman's name, and the profession of the person responsible for the fatal abortion.

1. Ida Henry: midwife
   
   
2. Barbara Shelgren: physician
   
   
3. Alice Koester: unknown
   
   
4. Mrs. Jorgenson: nurse or midwife
   
   
5. Sarah Bonda: midwife
   
   
6. Mary Borglun: nurse or midwife
   
   
7. Julia Pettinger: physician
   
   
8. Jennie Mallard: midwife
   
   
9. Mrs. Matteson: physician
   
   
10. Mrs. Swope: physician
    
    
11. Mrs. Robinson: physician
    
    
12. Irma Brown: physician
    
    
13. Rose Lefebre: physician
    
    
14. Harriet Larocque: unknown
    
    
15. Irene Wengel: physician
    
    
16. Sophie Herman: midwife
    
    
17. Florence Gaiewski: physician
    
    
18. Mary McCarthy: amateur
    
    
19. Mrs. Swanson: midwife
    
    
20. Alice Bloom: physician
    
    
21. Mary Putnam: physician
    
    
22. Lola Madson: physician
    
    
23. Anna Gosch: amateur
    
    
24. Annie Horvatich: physician
    
    
25. Mrs. Gies: physician

I analyzed who performed these fatal abortions, and got this picture of who performed them:



That's:

Doctors - 60%

Midwives - 24%

Unknown or undetermined - 8%

Amateur - 8%

If we only count those for whom I was able to determine the profession of the perpetrator, the breakdown looks like this:

Doctors - 65.22%

Midwives - 26.09%

Amateur - 8.70%

This is in keeping with estimates that roughly 90% of pre-legalization abortions were being done by doctors when Planned Parenthood held a conference in 1955. As people turned to doctors for more care, rather than to midwives or to friends and relatives, they'd turn to doctors more for abortions as well. Also, doctors would likely be underrepresented among those performing fatal abortions, if only because they're more likely to be able to come up with a likely alternative explanation for a death.

For more about abortion deaths in specific years, see this post.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1985: Bleeding, infection, death

Arnetta Hardaway was 18 years old when she had a safe, legal mid-trimester abortion performed by Dr. George Tucker in Atlanta on December 23, 1985. Arnetta continued to bleed, and developed infection, after her abortion. On December 27, she died from her complications.

In deference to SoMG, who can't abide when I simply let my readers draw their own conclusions: I really doubt that Arnetta's sitting around in the afterlife, gloating that her abortion was legal. She's just as dead as the woman whose abortion wasn't legal. And I doubt that the legal status of her abortion is any comfort to her family and friends. Though it is crystal clear that the legal status of her abortion was a great boon to the guy who did it, since he didn't get arrested for killing her.

I think I'm beginning to see the decided advantage of safe, legal abortion! And it's not to women and their families.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

A difficult choice

THIS is making a difficult choice, a choice to have a part of your body removed:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

THIS is making a difficult choice to have SOMEBODY ELSE'S BODY removed from your body, killing them in the process:



There is a difference.

Actually, there are a lot of differences.

Abortion deaths in 1928

Here I could repeat much of what I said about abortion in 1927 and abortion in 1929.

We need some perspective first. All surgery of any sort in this era was done without the aid of modern blood transfusion and antibiotics. All surgery of any sort in this era was riskier than similar surgery today. This is the era where kitchen-table surgery was phasing out in favor of hospital-based surgery. I have an obstetrical nursing textbook from this era that describes how to set up an operating table in the woman's home to perform a c-section.

Blood banks were cutting-edge battlefield medicine just a few years before, and had not yet come into common usage. Blood type compatibility was not yet understood. It wasn't until the late 1930s and early 1940s that things like separating blood products started to come into practice. Antibiotics were not manufactured and used widely until after WWII. (See chart, below)

So keep in mind that things that may seem appalling to us in the early 21st century -- such as performing surgery in one's home -- was not appalling at the time. Things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.

Maternal mortality rates for the 20th century, according to the CDC, looked like this:



This is all pregnancy-related deaths, including legal abortions, criminal abortions, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and all complications of pregnancy, labor, and childbirth.

There was a very precipitous drop in all maternal mortality rates from 1920 to 1950. The steepest drop started in the late 1930s. Since this drop was due to overall improvements in health and sanitation, they were probably more pronounced in childbirth. If anybody's interested I can explain that a bit more. But still, abortion mortality probably was falling during this period as well, since a healthier woman is more likely to survive an abortion than an unhealthy woman, and doctors who are washing their hands and cleaning their instruments prior to assisting in a delivery or a therapeutic D&C are also likely to do so when doing abortions.

With that established, let's look at some examples of women who died in 1928, and who did their abortions. I did not choose these cases because I thought they made a particular political point, but because they were the cases I was able to find information about.

Julia Agoston died of a botched abortion; two physicians, Dr. Anton Feher and Dr. Helen Moskowitz, were arrested as principals, with other involved parties arrested as accessories to the crime.

Margaret Barnts died from an abortion performed by somebody whose name I've been unable to verify and whose profession I've been unable to determine.

Anna Borndal died at the office of Dr. Lou E. Davis of Chicago, from complications of an abortion performed there that day.

Rose Hannover died at the office of Dr. Lester I. Ofner from complications of an abortion performed there that day.

Mildred Jacobsen took ill at work and died from what turned out to be a botched abortion performed at an unknown location by an unidentified perpetrator.

Bessie Kouns implicated Dr. H.C. Dorroh in her deathbed statement.

Stefania Kwit died from complications of a criminal abortion performed that day by midwife Pauline Majerczyk.

Catherine Mau died from complications of an abortion performed by Chicago midwife Anna Heisler.

Eunice McElroy died after an abortion performed by Dr. Thomas J. Ney.

Anna Mae Smith died from an abortion performed at the Chicago office of Dr. George F. Slater.

Lucille Smith died at Chicago's Burrows Hospital from complications of an abortion performed that day at the office of midwife Emma Schulz.

Maud Thurmond died after an abortion performed by an unidentified perpetrator.

Esther Wahlstrom died from an abortion performed by Dr. Lou E. Davis.

Stella Wallenberg died after an abortion performed by Loretta Rybicki, identified as a "massaguer", with Dr. Nicholas Kalinowski as an accessory.

Martha Washington died after an abortion performed by an unknown perpetrator.

In deference to SoMG, who isn't content that I like to let my readers draw their own conclusions:

Mostly I'm wondering right now why the information from the Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database is so sketchy. Is it that so little was know about who killed these women, or is it that so little of the information made it into the database?

Here is a breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've uncovered for the 1920s:



*Doctors: 45.65%
*Perpetrator, or perpetrator's profession, unknown: 29.71%
*Other medical person: 20.29%
*Self: 1.45%
*Professional lay abortionist: 0.72%

If we figure that the least likely to die are those who get a doctor to do their abortions, and the most likely to die those who take things into their own hands, this small sample is in keeping with the estimates of Mary Calderone and Nancy Howell Lee, that about 90% of criminal abortions were done by doctors.


For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1925

Here I could repeat much of what I said about abortion in 1927 and abortion in 1929.

We need some perspective first. All surgery of any sort in this era was done without the aid of modern blood transfusion and antibiotics. All surgery of any sort in this era was riskier than similar surgery today. This is the era where kitchen-table surgery was phasing out in favor of hospital-based surgery. I have an obstetrical nursing textbook from this era that describes how to set up an operating table in the woman's home to perform a c-section.

Blood banks were cutting-edge battlefield medicine just a few years before, and had not yet come into common usage. Blood type compatibility was not yet understood. It wasn't until the late 1930s and early 1940s that things like separating blood products started to come into practice. Antibiotics were not manufactured and used widely until after WWII. (See chart, below)

So keep in mind that things that may seem appalling to us in the early 21st century -- such as performing surgery in one's home -- was not appalling at the time. Things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.

Maternal mortality rates for the 20th century, according to the CDC, looked like this:



This is all pregnancy-related deaths, including legal abortions, criminal abortions, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and all complications of pregnancy, labor, and childbirth.

There was a very precipitous drop in all maternal mortality rates from 1920 to 1950. The steepest drop started in the late 1930s. Since this drop was due to overall improvements in health and sanitation, they were probably more pronounced in childbirth. If anybody's interested I can explain that a bit more. But still, abortion mortality probably was falling during this period as well, since a healthier woman is more likely to survive an abortion than an unhealthy woman, and doctors who are washing their hands and cleaning their instruments prior to assisting in a delivery or a therapeutic D&C are also likely to do so when doing abortions.

With that established, let's look at some examples of women who died in 1925, and who did their abortions. I did not choose these cases because I thought they made a particular political point, but because they were the cases I was able to find information about.

Helen Bain died after an abortion performed by Dr. George Slater.

Jean Cohen was one of the many victims of Dr. Lucy Hagenow.

Agnes Crow died after an abortion performed by somebody that the coroner identifies as "a female midwife", but not by name.

Della Davis died after an abortion by an unknown perpetrator.

Betty Fisher died in the Chicago office of doctors August Goetz and Henry Gautsen from an abortion performed that day.

Anna Kick died after an abortion performed by a midwife that the source did not name.

Lottie Lowy was another victim of Dr. Lucy Hagenow.

Bridget Masterson refused even on her deathbed to name the abortionist who had injured her, but a suicide note by her lover identified "a lady doctor at 310 W. North Ave" -- the address of Dr. Lucy Hagenow.

Faye McGinnis died after an abortion involving physicians Walter Penningdorf and Walter Voight.

Nina Pierce was yet another victim of the notorious Dr. Lucy Hagenow.

Kate Radochouski died after an abortion by an unidentified perpetrator.

Mary Sayers died after an abortion performed by midwife Edna Marie Dietrich.

Katarzyna Tobiasz died after an abortion performed by a woman identified as a nurse or midwife.

Elizabeth Welter was yet another victim of Dr. Lucy Hagenow.

Mary Williams died after an abortion by an unidentified perpetrator.

Gertrude Wynants died after an abortion by a person whose profession I have been unable to determine.

Margaret Zito died after an abortion by an unidentified perpetrator.

In deference to SoMG, who isn't content that I like to let my readers draw their own conclusions:

I find Dr. Hagenow's ability to escape justice infuriating and bewildering. I am looking into research on how abortionists managed to get into a revolving door legal system that freed the to kill again. I know such research has been done. And I think that prolifers need to really delve into it. An effective strategy to stop abortion and abortion quackery will need to be one that looks to the past for successes and failures, and learns from them.

And it'd be nice if prochoicers managed to grasp that illegal abortion wasn't an endless vista of bloody coathangers. It was largely the work of doctors. And, frankly, Lucy Hagenow doesn't strike me as significantly different from, say, Fast Eddie Allred. It's just that Hagenow faced greater hassles if she screwed up than Allred does.

Here is a breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've uncovered for the 1920s:



*Doctors: 45.65%
*Perpetrator, or perpetrator's profession, unknown: 29.71%
*Other medical person: 20.29%
*Self: 1.45%
*Professional lay abortionist: 0.72%

If we figure that the least likely to die are those who get a doctor to do their abortions, and the most likely to die those who take things into their own hands, this small sample is in keeping with the estimates of Mary Calderone and Nancy Howell Lee, that about 90% of criminal abortions were done by doctors.


For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

The Christmas Truce

I'd love to copy some of the content as a teaser, but can't do so for some reason. Go read about it at Snopes.

The Gutierrez Abortion: A Wretched Christmas

Carolina Gutierrez, only twenty years old, remained on a respirator in an intensive care unit of a Miami hospital over Christmas of 1995. She had been hospitalized since December 21, when her family had called an ambulance in their alarm over her difficulty breathing. She had arrived at the emergency room already in septic shock.

Two days of trying to contact Maber Medical Center, where Carolina had undergone an abortion on the 19th, over her husband's objections, had yielded no help. The young mother, who had no medical insurance, had been suffering from fever and pain since the evening of the 19th.

Doctors at the hospital had performed an emergency hysterectomy, trying to halt the spread of infection from her perforated uterus, but the sepsis raged on.

Carolina spent Christmas on a respirator, sepsis raging through her body. Her two children spent most of their time in the care of relatives as their stepfather, Jose Linarte, spent as much time as he could by Carolina's side, waiting and praying.

The ICU staff cared as best they could for their critically-ill patient, but the sepsis was getting worse instead of better.

In deference to SoMG, who wants me to tell what I think the point is instead of allowing readers to draw their own conclusions:

I wish that the abortion lobby and prochoice activists would learn to care as much about women like Carolina as they do about women who died decades ago, or about hypothetical women of the future who might die. And I wish we'd all work together so that there's no such thing as a woman so lacking in any sense of other options that she climbs on the abortion table in the first place.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1885: A heartbreaking Christmas discovery

On Christmas day of 1885, Dr. Sawdy of Howard City, about 40 miles north of Grand Rapids, opened the newspaper to find out that his 21-year-old daughter, Sylvia, was dead.

Sylvia had left for Grand Rapids by train on December 10, ostensibly to meet the mother of her gentleman-caller, Harry McDowell. Dr. Sawdy had heard nothing more from or about his daughter until the morning of Christmas Eve, when McDowell's father came to him, saying that he'd gotten a telegram or telephone call from his son. The senior McDowell said that Harry had told him that Sylvia was very sick and wanted her mother to go to her. Dr. Sawdy learned nothing more until opening his newspaper on Christmas morning.

It came out in the trial that in November, Sylvia had consulted with Drs. Bodle, Hake, and Bradish, indicating that she was pregnant. Evidence indicated that in spite of the consultations with there doctors, McDowell had performed an abortion on Sylvia on December 23, and that she died that day. McDowell was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 15 years.

In deference to SoMG, who wants me to tell what I think the point is of these stories instead of allowing my readers to draw their own conclusions:

I wish I knew what the three doctors had told Sylvia, aside from presumably verifying her pregnancy. We don't know if they refused to perform an abortion, if they quoted prices that either Sylvia and her lover found prohibitive, if they advised McDowell on how to perform the abortion himself, or if they just kept making circular referrals. History doesn't tell us why Sylvia elected to allow her lover to perform the abortion, just as the documents I've found tell us nothing as to why "Daisy" Roe decided to let her lover do an abortion on her in 1990. We can speculate on what the outcome would have been if abortion had been legal -- though given the state of medical care at the time, or the kinds of quackery that persist after legalization, it might have made little if any difference. We can speculate on what might have dissuaded Sylvia from proceeding with the abortion. Frankly, I can't draw any conclusion myself other than that Sylvia's death was tragic, and that I wish we knew more about how it might have been prevented.

Then why tell Sylvia's story at all? Because I don't pick and choose, only telling women's stories if I think I can use them to score political points. I want a world in which nobody is dying from abortions -- not mothers, not babies, not anybody. And I want to pursue that world honestly, not by hiding information that doesn't support my pet theories. So. Sometimes a woman's story doesn't seem to add diddly-squat to a store of useful information. I think my refusal to pick and choose at least adds an honesty and dedication to truth -- even unpleasant or puzzling or inconvenient truth -- that can only help in the long run.

For more about deaths in specific years or eras, see this post.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

A gruesome Christmas discovery

On Christmas day of 1934, the nude body of a young woman was found in a thicket near a highway south of New York City. She had been dead between 12 and 24 hours.

Laura and Joseph Devine, whose 19-year-old daughter, Loretta Wilson, had been missing since December 19, contacted authorities and were able to positively identify the body. Loretta had left home at noon on the 19th, telling the landlady that she was going to see a doctor. Loretta's family had reported her missing on the 20th.

When an autopsy revealed the cause of death as abortion, Loretta's husband of two years indicated that he had not even been aware that Loretta was pregnant.

Dr. John H. Becker Jr., who admitted to having examined Loretta on December 17, was charged with homicide in the death. He denied performing the abortion.



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

In deference to SoMG, who wants to know what the point is in describing specific abortion deaths:

I'd like prochoicers to note that, contrary to popular belief, illegal abortion was not endless vistas of bloody coathangers. It was largely the purview of doctors. We can speculate about whether or not Loretta would have died if abortion had been legal, but we need to do so in the context of medical care overall in the 1930s, which was pretty dismal, seeing as it predated antibiotics and blood transfusions. We also need to do so in the context of modern legal abortion, which isn't exactly a picture of competence and conscientious practice. If the goal of legalization is to prevent deaths, we need to look at why women died and why they continue to die, and not just assume that abortion's legal status is the deciding factor.

I'd like prolifers to note that, contrary to popular belief, criminalizing abortion wasn't in itself enough to keep even a married woman from resorting to it -- and sometimes without going to her parents or husband. If we want to prevent abortions, we need to understand the dynamics that put women like Loretta on the abortion table in spite of the clear risks. And we need to stop assuming that abortion's legal status is the deciding factor.

Is that better, SoMG?

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1924

Here I could repeat much of what I said about abortion in 1927 and abortion in 1929.

We need some perspective first. All surgery of any sort in this era was done without the aid of modern blood transfusion and antibiotics. All surgery of any sort in this era was riskier than similar surgery today. This is the era where kitchen-table surgery was phasing out in favor of hospital-based surgery. I have an obstetrical nursing textbook from this era that describes how to set up an operating table in the woman's home to perform a c-section.

Blood banks were cutting-edge battlefield medicine just a few years before, and had not yet come into common usage. Blood type compatibility was not yet understood. It wasn't until the late 1930s and early 1940s that things like separating blood products started to come into practice. Antibiotics were not manufactured and used widely until after WWII. (See chart, below)

So keep in mind that things that may seem appalling to us in the early 21st century -- such as performing surgery in one's home -- was not appalling at the time. Things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.

Maternal mortality rates for the 20th century, according to the CDC, looked like this:



This is all pregnancy-related deaths, including legal abortions, criminal abortions, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and all complications of pregnancy, labor, and childbirth.

There was a very precipitous drop in all maternal mortality rates from 1920 to 1950. The steepest drop started in the late 1930s. Since this drop was due to overall improvements in health and sanitation, they were probably more pronounced in childbirth. If anybody's interested I can explain that a bit more. But still, abortion mortality probably was falling during this period as well, since a healthier woman is more likely to survive an abortion than an unhealthy woman, and doctors who are washing their hands and cleaning their instruments prior to assisting in a delivery or a therapeutic D&C are also likely to do so when doing abortions.

With that established, let's look at some examples of women who died in 1924, and who did their abortions. I did not choose these cases because I thought they made a particular political point, but because they were the cases I was able to find information about.

Madelyn Anderson died after an abortion performed by Dr. Louise Achtenberg.

Mildred Bleschke died after an abortion by an unidentified perpetrator.

Selma Hedlund died after an abortion by an unidentified perpetrator.

Helen Koss died after an abortion performed by midwife Emma Morch.

Etta Marcus died after an abortion performed by Dr. William J. Wick at his office.

Agnes Nazar died after an abortion performed by Rogie Hatal, whose profession I have been unable to determine.

Elizabeth Strazdas died after an abortion by an unknown perpetrator.

Anna Strazynski died after an abortion by an unidentified perpetrator.

Elizabeth Strobel died after an abortion performed by Anna Wenzig, whose profession I've been unable to determine.

Wanda Szidzewicz died after an abortion by midwife Ida Cantor.

Mary Whitney died after an abortion at the Chicago office of Dr. Lou E. Davis.

Here is a breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've uncovered for the 1920s:



*Doctors: 45.65%
*Perpetrator, or perpetrator's profession, unknown: 29.71%
*Other medical person: 20.29%
*Self: 1.45%
*Professional lay abortionist: 0.72%

If we figure that the least likely to die are those who get a doctor to do their abortions, and the most likely to die those who take things into their own hands, this small sample is in keeping with the estimates of Mary Calderone and Nancy Howell Lee, that about 90% of criminal abortions were done by doctors.


For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1923

Here I could repeat much of what I said about abortion in 1927 and abortion in 1929.

We need some perspective first. All surgery of any sort in this era was done without the aid of modern blood transfusion and antibiotics. All surgery of any sort in this era was riskier than similar surgery today. This is the era where kitchen-table surgery was phasing out in favor of hospital-based surgery. I have an obstetrical nursing textbook from this era that describes how to set up an operating table in the woman's home to perform a c-section.

Blood banks were cutting-edge battlefield medicine just a few years before, and had not yet come into common usage. Blood type compatibility was not yet understood. It wasn't until the late 1930s and early 1940s that things like separating blood products started to come into practice. Antibiotics were not manufactured and used widely until after WWII. (See chart, below)

So keep in mind that things that may seem appalling to us in the early 21st century -- such as performing surgery in one's home -- was not appalling at the time. Things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.

Maternal mortality rates for the 20th century, according to the CDC, looked like this:



This is all pregnancy-related deaths, including legal abortions, criminal abortions, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and all complications of pregnancy, labor, and childbirth.

There was a very precipitous drop in all maternal mortality rates from 1920 to 1950. The steepest drop started in the late 1930s. Since this drop was due to overall improvements in health and sanitation, they were probably more pronounced in childbirth. If anybody's interested I can explain that a bit more. But still, abortion mortality probably was falling during this period as well, since a healthier woman is more likely to survive an abortion than an unhealthy woman, and doctors who are washing their hands and cleaning their instruments prior to assisting in a delivery or a therapeutic D&C are also likely to do so when doing abortions.

With that established, let's look at some examples of women who died in 1923, and who did their abortions. I did not choose these cases because I thought they made a particular political point, but because they were the cases I was able to find information about.

Annie Allison died at the office of chiropractor Henry Lee Mottard, who practiced under the name of Dr. Henry L. Green. Mottard alleged that Annie had died after an accidental fall down an elevator shaft at the premises. However, Annie's death certificate, signed by another physician, attributed her death to chronic cardiac nephritis. Police, who were investigating Mottard for his suspected involvement in a kidnap/adoption scheme, were suspicious and had Annie exhumed. It was revealed that she had died from an abortion.

Madge Bowman died at Chicago's Garfield Park Hospital from an abortion performed there that day. Midwife Kate Seuer was suspected.

Martha Byzynski died at Chicago's St. Mary's Hospital from an abortion performed that day. The coroner named Jane Worchowski, a nurse or midwife, as the person responsible.

Mary Federowicz died after an abortion by a perpetrator whose profession I've been unable to determine.

Sophia Hartozinski died at Chicago's County Hospital due to a criminal abortion performed there that day. The coroner identified midwife Mary Roback as having been responsible for Sophia's death.

Emma Herod died in her home from an abortion performed there that day. Dr. Emma J. Warren was arrested for the death.

Alice Johnson died at Chicago's West End Hospital from a criminal abortion performed there that day. The coroner identified Dr. Lorenz Lapsky as responsible.

Mollie Monilson died after an abortion performed by an undetermined perpetrator.

Lydia Nelson died at Chicago's Englewood Hospital from an abortion performed there that day, evidently by Dr. Charles Klinetop.

Lauretta Schranz died after an abortion perpetrated by somebody whose profession I have been unable to determine.

Daisy Singerland died after an abortion performed by Dr. J.W. Lipscomb.

Catherine Stange died after an abortion performed by Dr. Daniel R. Lucy.

Mary Sudik died after an abortion performed at a small quasi-hospital run by Dr. A.B.C. Davis.

Agnes Wendt died after an abortion attributed to Dr. Irene Wagoner.

Here is a breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've uncovered for the 1920s:



*Doctors: 45.65%
*Perpetrator, or perpetrator's profession, unknown: 29.71%
*Other medical person: 20.29%
*Self: 1.45%
*Professional lay abortionist: 0.72%

If we figure that the least likely to die are those who get a doctor to do their abortions, and the most likely to die those who take things into their own hands, this small sample is in keeping with the estimates of Mary Calderone and Nancy Howell Lee, that about 90% of criminal abortions were done by doctors.


For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1970: Children face bleak Christmas, thanks to safe, legal abortion

"Amy" was 35 years old when she had a safe and legal abortion performed on December 24, 1970. She was 14 weeks pregnant. During the abortion, Amy suffered from a massive pulmonary embolism. Her two children faced a dismal Christmas, with their mother hospitalized in critical condition. Doctors fought over the holidays to save Amy's life, but to no avail. Their efforts would fail, with Amy's death January 2.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1955: The bizarre tale of Jacqueline Smith

Over the years, many details of the Jacqueline Smith case have been lost, and the remaining story often is dismissed as an urban legend. But strange and macabre as the story is, it was all too true.

Jacqueline, age 20, was a slender, brown-eyed blonde from Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Over the protests of her father, 41-year-old Chester Smith, and her mother, Jacqueline moved to New York and took an apartment with two other women early in 1955. She wanted to pursue a career as a fashion designer.

That June, friends introducted the soft-spken, demure Jacqueline to Thomas G. Daniel, an urbane young salesman of 24. Daniel was well-read, multi-lingual, a poet and gourmet cook. He had come to New York from Warren, Ohio, three years earlier. He worked at an upscale shop selling riding equipment. With his good looks and sophistication, he was able to win over the small-town girl. She spent more and more time at his apartment, all but moving in with him.

In December, Jacqueline told Daniel that she was pregnant. Daniels did not want to marry Jacqueline -- he still had a girlfriend back in Ohio who he preferred. Instead he arranged for a 46-year-old scrub nurse, Leobaldo Pejuan, to perform an abortion at Daniel's apartment on Christmas Eve. After performing the abortion, Pejuan became alarmed at the young woman's condition, and summoned Dr. Ramiro Morales, who told him that Jackie was dead.

Daniel and Pejuan cut Jacqueline's body into pieces and took it to Pejuan's home, where over the next several days they cut into as many as 50 pieces, which they wrapped in Christmas paper and disposed of in trash cans along side streets off Broadway, from 72nd to 80th.

When Chester Smith arrived for a visit on December 30, he got Daniel and together they went to the police to report Jackie missing. The police were quickly suspicious of Daniel and began to question him more closely. Daniel finally told police that Jacqueline had gone into the bathroom and stabbed herself to death due to his refusal to marry her, and that he had dumped her body in the Hudson River.

Police investigated, and found over 800 stolen medical instruments in Pejuan's apartment. The entire story eventually came out, with Pejuan pleading guilty and testifying against Daniel. Daniel's widowed mother attended the entire trial. Chester Smith, too, was there, but left the courtroom when testimony came to describing the dismemberment of his daughter's body.

Pejuan was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison, and Daniel was sentenced to 8 years. His mother went into hysterics upon hearing the verdict, screaming, "God help me. They have taken my lfe, my savings, my son."

Nobody recorded the words of Jacqueline's father as he faced a life without his daughter.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1922

Here I could repeat much of what I said about abortion in 1927 and abortion in 1929.

We need some perspective first. All surgery of any sort in this era was done without the aid of modern blood transfusion and antibiotics. All surgery of any sort in this era was riskier than similar surgery today. This is the era where kitchen-table surgery was phasing out in favor of hospital-based surgery. I have an obstetrical nursing textbook from this era that describes how to set up an operating table in the woman's home to perform a c-section.

Blood banks were cutting-edge battlefield medicine just a few years before, and had not yet come into common usage. Blood type compatibility was not yet understood. It wasn't until the late 1930s and early 1940s that things like separating blood products started to come into practice. Antibiotics were not manufactured and used widely until after WWII. (See chart, below)

So keep in mind that things that may seem appalling to us in the early 21st century -- such as performing surgery in one's home -- was not appalling at the time. Things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.

Maternal mortality rates for the 20th century, according to the CDC, looked like this:



This is all pregnancy-related deaths, including legal abortions, criminal abortions, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and all complications of pregnancy, labor, and childbirth.

There was a very precipitous drop in all maternal mortality rates from 1920 to 1950. The steepest drop started in the late 1930s. Since this drop was due to overall improvements in health and sanitation, they were probably more pronounced in childbirth. If anybody's interested I can explain that a bit more. But still, abortion mortality probably was falling during this period as well, since a healthier woman is more likely to survive an abortion than an unhealthy woman, and doctors who are washing their hands and cleaning their instruments prior to assisting in a delivery or a therapeutic D&C are also likely to do so when doing abortions.

With that established, let's look at some examples of women who died in 1922, and who did their abortions. I did not choose these cases because I thought they made a particular political point, but because they were the cases I was able to find information about.

Mary Cybulski died at her Chicago home from complications of a criminal abortion performed there that day by a perpetrator whose profession I have been unable to determine.

Mary Gresky named Mary Vargo as her abortionist in a deathbed statement. I"ve been unable to determine the abortionist's usual profession.

Lillian Hulbert died after an abortion performed by a nurse or midwife named M.C. Anderson.

Louise Huse died after an abortion performed by midwife Agnes Tholl.

Veronica Maslanka died after an abortion performed by midwife Mary Pesova.

Carrie McDonald died after an abortion by a perpetrator whose profession I've been unable to determine.

Irene Michaelson died from complications of an abortion performed by Dr. William H. Bricker Jr.

Beulah Pickerill died from an abortion that involved two physicians, Vincent Filletti and Michale Galgano.

Margaret Sullivan died after an abortion performed by an unknown perpetrator.

Here is a breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've uncovered for the 1920s:



*Doctors: 45.65%
*Perpetrator, or perpetrator's profession, unknown: 29.71%
*Other medical person: 20.29%
*Self: 1.45%
*Professional lay abortionist: 0.72%

If we figure that the least likely to die are those who get a doctor to do their abortions, and the most likely to die those who take things into their own hands, this small sample is in keeping with the estimates of Mary Calderone and Nancy Howell Lee, that about 90% of criminal abortions were done by doctors.


For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1920-1921

Here I could repeat much of what I said about abortion in 1927 and abortion in 1929.

We need some perspective first. All surgery of any sort in this era was done without the aid of modern blood transfusion and antibiotics. All surgery of any sort in this era was riskier than similar surgery today. This is the era where kitchen-table surgery was phasing out in favor of hospital-based surgery. I have an obstetrical nursing textbook from this era that describes how to set up an operating table in the woman's home to perform a c-section.

Blood banks were cutting-edge battlefield medicine just a few years before, and had not yet come into common usage. Blood type compatibility was not yet understood. It wasn't until the late 1930s and early 1940s that things like separating blood products started to come into practice. Antibiotics were not manufactured and used widely until after WWII. (See chart, below)

So keep in mind that things that may seem appalling to us in the early 21st century -- such as performing surgery in one's home -- was not appalling at the time. Things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.

Maternal mortality rates for the 20th century, according to the CDC, looked like this:



This is all pregnancy-related deaths, including legal abortions, criminal abortions, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and all complications of pregnancy, labor, and childbirth.

There was a very precipitous drop in all maternal mortality rates from 1920 to 1950. The steepest drop started in the late 1930s. Since this drop was due to overall improvements in health and sanitation, they were probably more pronounced in childbirth. If anybody's interested I can explain that a bit more. But still, abortion mortality probably was falling during this period as well, since a healthier woman is more likely to survive an abortion than an unhealthy woman, and doctors who are washing their hands and cleaning their instruments prior to assisting in a delivery or a therapeutic D&C are also likely to do so when doing abortions.

With that established, let's look at some examples of women who died in 1921, and who did their abortions. I did not choose these cases because I thought they made a particular political point, but because they were the cases I was able to find information about.

Margaret Marts died after an abortion performed by Dr. E. Anderson.

Jennie Chubb died in her Chicago home of an abortion performed there that day. I've been unable to determine the profession of the perpetrator.

Virginia Rappe (pronounced "rah-PAY", pictured) died under mysterious circumstances, after taking ill at a party thrown by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Though Arbuckle was originally blamed for Virginia's death, an investigation indicates that Virginia likely had suffered her injuries during what would have been her fifth abortion at Wakefield Sanitorium, a maternity hospital run by Dr. Francis Wakefield and Josephine Roth, and known for performing quasi-legal abortions. I count Virginia as an abortion performed by a doctor because that was by far the most likely scenario.

Iva Triplett died after an abortion performed by Dr. C.W. Milliken. Iva's widower, on behalf of himself and the couple's children, sued Milliken for the injury and for failure to inform Iva's family of the nature of her illness so that they could seek and provide appropriate care for her.

Here is a breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've uncovered for the 1920s:



*Doctors: 45.65%
*Perpetrator, or perpetrator's profession, unknown: 29.71%
*Other medical person: 20.29%
*Self: 1.45%
*Professional lay abortionist: 0.72%

If we figure that the least likely to die are those who get a doctor to do their abortions, and the most likely to die those who take things into their own hands, this small sample is in keeping with the estimates of Mary Calderone and Nancy Howell Lee, that about 90% of criminal abortions were done by doctors.


For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1970: Safe, legal abortion leaves two children motherless two days before Christmas

"Kimberly" was 25 years old and 18 weeks pregnant when she underwent a safe and legal abortion in New York City on December 23, 1970. During the abortion, she went into cardiac arrest and died, leaving behind two children.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths 1910-1919

This is the picture the CDC paints in Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Healthier Mothers and Babies of maternal mortality at the beginning of the 20th century:

Maternal mortality rates were highest in this century during 1900-1930. Poor obstetric education and delivery practices were mainly responsible for the high numbers of maternal deaths, most of which were preventable. Obstetrics as a speciality was shunned by many physicians, and obstetric care was provided by poorly trained or untrained medical practitioners. Most births occurred at home with the assistance of midwives or general practitioners. Inappropriate and excessive surgical and obstetric interventions (e.g., induction of labor, use of forceps, episiotomy, and cesarean deliveries) were common and increased during the 1920s. Deliveries, including some surgical interventions, were performed without following the principles of asepsis. As a result, 40% of maternal deaths were caused by sepsis (half following delivery and half associated with illegally induced abortion) with the remaining deaths primarily attributed to hemorrhage and toxemia.

Note, please, that with issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

Maternal mortality rates for the 20th century, according to the CDC, looked like this:



This is all maternal deaths, from abortion, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, complications of childbirth, and so forth. You can see that the 20th Century got off to a good start, improving maternal health, but that trend would later level off, and then reverse itself temporarily, before taking the downward trend that would continue for the rest of the century.

Note also the total lack of even the faintest blip on the trends with the legalization of abortion in the beginning of the 1970s.

With that established, let's look at the sample of cases I've been unable to uncover during the second decade of the 20th Century. Please note that these cases are chosen purely because I could find information about them, and not because I thought a particular woman's story made a particular political point. I found these cases by searching Westlaw, online historic newspaper archives, and the Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database. My criminal abortion samples also include cases I stumbled across in my other reading. Unlike the people at the Centers for Disease Control's abortion surveillance, I don't need to get beaten over the head with an abortion death case to notice it. I actually stay alert and notice without anybody belaboring the point. And it's not even my job to be paying attention. Unlike the stellar professionals at the CDC, I'm doing this on my own time and my own dime.

1. 1910: Eva Swan died after an abortion by "Dr. Grant", who then had an assistant help him bury her body in his cellar. "Dr. Grant" turnd out to really be Dr. Robert Thompson.
   
   
2. June 25, 1911: Anna Mueller died after an abortion performed by Dr. George Lotz.
   
   
3. 1913: Emma Chandler died after an abortion performed by Dr. J.A. Richmond.
   
   
4. October 23, 1913: Emily Nohavec died after an abortion performed by midwife Emma Bickel.
   
   
5. April 26, 1914: Florence Lindquist died after an abortion performed in the home of Dr. Arthur Schulz.
   
   
6. October 1, 1914: Lillie Giovenco died after an abortion performed by professional abortionist Dr. Eva Shaver.
   
   
7. May 26, 1915: Anna Johnson died after an abortion performed by Dr. Eva Shaver in her home. Shaver then shot the dead woman in the head to try to make the death look like a suicide.
   
   
8. Ocotber 15, 1915: Anna Anderson died after an abortion performed by Dr. A. A. Ausplund in his office, despite the assistance he'd sought from two other doctors after Anna started to hemorrhage.
   
   
9. February 20, 1916: Bertha Carlson died from an abortion performed at an unknown perpetrator at an unknown location.
   
   
10. February 25, 1916: Alda Christopherson died after an abortion performed by Dr. Lillian Hobbs at her Chicago practice.
    
    
11. July 21, 1916: Elizabeth Radcliffe died after an abortion by an undetermined perpetrator.
    
    
12. September, 1916: Etta Gardener died after an abortion by an undetermined perpetrator.
    
    
13. 1917: Ada Williams died after an abortion perpetrated by Dr. Noble O. Hamilton.
    
    
14. April 30, 1917: Ruth Lemaire implicated Dr. Lillian Hobbs on her deathbed.
    
    
15. August, 1917: Elise Stone died after an abortion by Dr. A. H. Yates.
    
    
16. August 9, 1917: Mary Park died after an abortion performed by Dr. Nicholas J. Phelan.
    
    
17. October 10, 1917: Katherine Cross died after an abortion performed by Dr. A. H. Yates.
    
    
18. December 3, 1917: Grace Wolf died after an abortion perpetrated in the office of Dr. C. Allen Snyder.
    
    
19. November 18, 1917: Ellen Matson died after an abortion performed by Dr. Lillian Hobbs.
    
    
20. November, 1918: Mary Lareau died amid a flu epidemic that knocked her death to the back pages. Two women whose professions were not given were arrested in Mary's death.
    
    
21. 1919: Inez Reed died after an abortion by unidentified perpetrators, who then tossed her body off a cliff to cover up their crime.
    
    
22. February 20, 1919: Viola Parr died after an abortion blamed on W. G. Waters and M. T. Summerlin, whose professions were not given.

And here is a breakdown of who performed these fatal abortions:

Doctors: 68.18%

Unknown perpetrator, or perpetrator's profession undetermined: 27.27%

Midwife: 4.55%

This is the breakdown of cases in which I was able to determine the profession of the perpetrator:

Doctor: 93.75%

Midwife: 6.25%

I realize that these numbers will be skewed by the small size of my sample, however they do support the findings of other researchers that pre-legalization abortions were mostly the work of physicians.

For more about abortion deaths in specific years, see this post.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1891: Back alley abortion fatal for Swedish girl

On December 22, 1891, a Swedish girl named Tillie Thom was found dead at the office of Dr. Franklin Brooks in Chicago. Tillie had died of an abortion performed that day in Brooks' office. Brooks was found responsible for Tillie's death by Coroner's Verdict.

Tillie's abortion was typical of those before legalization in that it was performed by a physician.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Carolina Gutierrez: Into the ICU

On December 21, 1995, 20-year-old Carolina Gutierrez, already ill from an abortion performed in a Miami clinic two days earlier, could barely breathe. Her family called 911 and she was rushed to the hospital. She arrived at the emergency room already in septic shock.

Carolina had tried over the previous two days to contact staff at the clinic, Maber Medical Center in Miami. She had been suffering pain in her chest and abdomen since the evening of the 19th. She kept getting an answering machine, but her messages were not returned. When somebody finally did answer the phone, they had hung up on her. Carolina had no medical insurance. She needed help. She tried to tough it out, to no avail.

Doctors at the hospital performed an emergency hysterectomy, trying to halt the spread of infection from her perforated uterus. After surgery, Carolina was put into the intensive care unit, where she battled for her life against the raging sepsis.

Relatives cared for her children, a five-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy from a previous relationship, while Carolina's husband, Jose Linarte, spent as much time as he could by her side. "I can't sleep. I try to take my mind off it, but it's impossible," he told the Miami Herald.

His wife lay there on a respirator. All Jose could do was wait and pray.

Abortion deaths, 1902-1909

This is the picture the CDC paints in Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Healthier Mothers and Babies of maternal mortality at the beginning of the 20th century:

Maternal mortality rates were highest in this century during 1900-1930. Poor obstetric education and delivery practices were mainly responsible for the high numbers of maternal deaths, most of which were preventable. Obstetrics as a speciality was shunned by many physicians, and obstetric care was provided by poorly trained or untrained medical practitioners. Most births occurred at home with the assistance of midwives or general practitioners. Inappropriate and excessive surgical and obstetric interventions (e.g., induction of labor, use of forceps, episiotomy, and cesarean deliveries) were common and increased during the 1920s. Deliveries, including some surgical interventions, were performed without following the principles of asepsis. As a result, 40% of maternal deaths were caused by sepsis (half following delivery and half associated with illegally induced abortion) with the remaining deaths primarily attributed to hemorrhage and toxemia.

Note, please, that with issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

Maternal mortality rates for the 20th century, according to the CDC, looked like this:



This is all maternal deaths, from abortion, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, complications of childbirth, and so forth. You can see that the 20th Century got off to a good start, improving maternal health, but that trend would later level off, and then reverse itself temporarily, before taking the downward trend that would continue for the rest of the century.

Note also the total lack of even the faintest blip on the trends with the legalization of abortion in the beginning of the 1970s.

With that established, let's look at the sample of cases I've been unable to uncover during this period. Please note that these cases are chosen purely because I could find information about them, and not because I thought a particular woman's story made a particular political point.

April 25, 1902: Harriet Larocque died after her lover reneged on his offer of marriage, and instead arranged an abortion by an unnamed perpetrator.

June 12, 1902: Irene Wengel died after her cousin arranged for an abortion to be done by Dr. Frederick N. Weightnovel.

1903: Sophie Herman died from an abortion performed by Harla Faustman, identified as a midwife.

September 3, 1903: Florence Gaiewski died after an abortion performed at a Chicago hospital by Dr. Ladislaw Slominski.

May 17, 1904: Mary McCarthy died from an abortion performed by Gertrude Plenz, whose profession was listed as "unskilled".

July 11, 1904: Mrs. Swanson died after an illegal abortion performed by midwife Constance Marie Anderson.

1905: Alice Bloom died after an abortion performed by Dr. Julius N. Goltz.

March 14, 1905: Mary Putnam is one of many victims of Dr. Lucy Hagenow.

March 2, 1906: Lola Madson is another victim of Dr. Lucy Hagenow.

March 20, 1906: Anna Gosch died after she allowed her lover to perform an abortion on her with a catheter.

May 6, 1907: Annie Horvatich died after an abortion by Dr. Lucy Hagenow.

1908: Mrs. Gies died after an abortion performed by Dr. William H. Wilson.

I analyzed who performed these fatal abortions, as well as those performed in 1901 and 1900, and got this picture of who performed the fatal abortions:



That's:

Doctors - 60%

Midwives - 24%

Unknown or undetermined - 8%

Amateur - 8%

This is in keeping with estimates that roughly 90% of pre-legalization abortions were being done by doctors when Planned Parenthood held a conference in 1955. As people turned to doctors for more care, rather than to midwives or to friends and relatives, they'd turn to doctors more for abortions as well. Also, doctors would likely be underrepresented among those performing fatal abortions, if only because they're more likely to be able to come up with a likely alternative explanation for a death.

For more about abortion deaths in specific years, see this post.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths, 1938-1939

We need some perspective first. All surgery of any sort in the 1930s was done without the aid of modern blood transfusion and antibiotics. All surgery of any sort in this period was riskier than similar surgery today. This is the era where kitchen-table surgery was phasing out in favor of hospital-based surgery. I have an obstetrical nursing textbook from this era that describes how to set up an operating table in the woman's home to perform a c-section.

Blood banks were cutting-edge battlefield medicine just a few years before, and had not yet come into common usage. Blood type compatibility was not yet understood. It wasn't until the late 1930s and early 1940s that things like separating blood products started to come into civilian practice at all. Antibiotics were not manufactured and used widely until after WWII. (See chart, below)

So keep in mind that things that may seem appalling to us in the early 21st century -- such as performing surgery in one's home -- was not appalling at the time. Things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.

With that said, I can't find any numbers for abortion mortality prior to 1940. It seems that before that, the information available lumps all maternal mortality together, and abortions can't be sorted out. But we can hazard a guess that the numbers were at least as high as they were in 1940. How much higher? It's hard to say.



So our best guess, based on what I've been able to find, is about 1,400 deaths a year from abortions in the late 1920s and early 1930s -- a number that would combine illegal abortions, the rare "therapeutic abortion" performed as a last-ditch attempt to save a dying woman, and miscarriages.

With that established, let's look at some examples of women who died, and who did their abortions:

1938: Doris Alexander died after Dr. Clinton E. May, who was also John Dillinger's doctor, performed an abortion on her.

May 6, 1938: Asunta La Rosa died after an abortion performed by Genevieve Horton, a practical nurse.

June 1, 1938: Mary Ellen Legge died after Dr. Otto Lucy performed an abortion on her, assisted by his practical nurse.

April 19, 1939: Jane Roe of Long Beach died after an abortion performed by two women whose professions I have been unable to determine.

May 5, 1939: Martha Anderson died after her lover arranged an abortion by a chiropractor-in-training, Frank Parchen.

October 13, 1939: Barbara Hanson died after an abortion performed in a motel room by two men whose professions I've been unable to determine.

October 18, 1939: Alice Corbett died after an abortion perpetrated by Dr. Allen F. Murphy.

Here is the breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've identified for the 1930s:



*Doctor: 73.68%
*Perpetrator or perpetrator's profession unknown: 15.79%
*Other medical professional: 7.89%
*Self: 2.63



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

For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1901

This is the picture the CDC paints in Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Healthier Mothers and Babies of maternal mortality at the beginning of the 20th century:

Maternal mortality rates were highest in this century during 1900-1930. Poor obstetric education and delivery practices were mainly responsible for the high numbers of maternal deaths, most of which were preventable. Obstetrics as a speciality was shunned by many physicians, and obstetric care was provided by poorly trained or untrained medical practitioners. Most births occurred at home with the assistance of midwives or general practitioners. Inappropriate and excessive surgical and obstetric interventions (e.g., induction of labor, use of forceps, episiotomy, and cesarean deliveries) were common and increased during the 1920s. Deliveries, including some surgical interventions, were performed without following the principles of asepsis. As a result, 40% of maternal deaths were caused by sepsis (half following delivery and half associated with illegally induced abortion) with the remaining deaths primarily attributed to hemorrhage and toxemia.

Note, please, that with issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

Maternal mortality rates for the 20th century, according to the CDC, looked like this:



This is all maternal deaths, from abortion, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, complications of childbirth, and so forth. You can see that the 20th Century got off to a good start, improving maternal health, but that trend would later level off, and then reverse itself temporarily, before taking the downward trend that would continue for the rest of the century.

Note also the total lack of even the faintest blip on the trends with the legalization of abortion in the beginning of the 1970s.

With that established, let's look at the sample of cases I've been unable to uncover during this period. Please note that these cases are chosen purely because I could find information about them, and not because I thought a particular woman's story made a particular political point.

January 7, 1901: Julia Pettinger died in her Chicago home from an abortion performed there that day by Dr. Maggie Becker.

January 16, 1901: Jennie Mallard died at a hospital in Chicago from an abortion performed there that day by Margaret Simmons, who is identified as a midwife.

May 9, 1901: Mrs. Matteson died from complications of an abortion performed by Dr. J.B. Butts.

July, 1901: Mrs. Swope died from complications of an abortion she was being treated for by Dr. F.D. Smith. Smith insisted that he'd merely been providing aftercare for an abortion actually perpetrated by Dr. D. W. Bottorf.

August 18, 1901: Mrs. Robinson died in her Chicago home from an abortion performed there by Dr. Muenster.

November 15, 1901: Irma Brown died in a Chicago hospital, from an abortion performed that day, evidently by Dr. Robert E. Gray.

December 2, 1901: Rose Lefebre was found dead of an apparent abortion in the office of Dr. Volbending.

I analyzed who performed these fatal abortions, as well as those performed 1902-1909 and 1900, and got this picture of who performed the fatal abortions:



That's:

Doctors - 60%

Midwives - 24%

Unknown or undetermined - 8%

Self - 8%

This is in keeping with estimates that roughly 90% of pre-legalization abortions were being done by doctors when Planned Parenthood held a conference in 1955. As people turned to doctors for more care, rather than to midwives or to friends and relatives, they'd turn to doctors more for abortions as well. Also, doctors would likely be underrepresented among those performing fatal abortions, if only because they're more likely to be able to come up with a likely alternative explanation for a death.

For more about abortion deaths in specific years, see this post.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1926: Abortion by Chicago midwife proves fatal for teen

On December 21, 1926, fifteen-year-old Emily Mueller died from complications of an abortion that she had undergone somewhere in Chicago in December 11. Magdelane Stegeman, alias Motzny, was booked on December 28. The source document identifies Stegeman as a midwife, but since female doctors who delivered babies were often at that time referred to as midwives, it is possible that Stegeman was a physician.

The coroner initially cleared Stegeman. She was nevertheless indicted for felony murder by the Grand Jury on February 15, 1927.

For more about abortion practice at the time, see Abortion in the 1920s.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1970: Australian woman never made it home for Christmas, thanks to safe, legal abortion

Denise Holmes, a 24-year-old Australian woman living in Texas, decided to undergo a safe and legal abortion at Avalon Hospital in Los Angeles, California, on her way home for Christmas of 1970.

She never made it home.

Denise checked into Avalon Hospital (an abortion facility owned by Edward Campbell Allred) on December 21. Denise suffered an amniotic fluid embolism that carried pieces of fetal bone marrow into her lungs. She was pronounced dead by Edward Allred at Avalon at 5pm.

Denise is the first confirmed abortion death at an Allred facility. She was also the first to die before the National Abortion Federation was founded, with Allred's Family Planning Associates Medical Group as a member. The National Abortion Federation promises that it only welcomes members that adhere to high standards of care, and that "they wouldn't be NAF members if there was something -- if there was a serious problem, and if the complications were -- were serious, you know."



Other abortion patients I know to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include:

• 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

The fact that even after Allred admitted that he's never done a preventability assessment after a patient death to try to prevent similar tragedies in the future never raised the ire of NAF. His facilities are still welcome members. And prochoice groups blithely refer women there:



You can place Denise's death in the context of other abortion deaths in the 1970s, and the years surrounding the 1970s. Can you spot Roe vs. Wade, which the abortion lobby repeatedly assures us made a massive and noticeable impact in the number of women losing their lives to abortion?



For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1900

This is the picture the CDC paints in Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Healthier Mothers and Babies of maternal mortality at the beginning of the 20th century:

Maternal mortality rates were highest in this century during 1900-1930. Poor obstetric education and delivery practices were mainly responsible for the high numbers of maternal deaths, most of which were preventable. Obstetrics as a speciality was shunned by many physicians, and obstetric care was provided by poorly trained or untrained medical practitioners. Most births occurred at home with the assistance of midwives or general practitioners. Inappropriate and excessive surgical and obstetric interventions (e.g., induction of labor, use of forceps, episiotomy, and cesarean deliveries) were common and increased during the 1920s. Deliveries, including some surgical interventions, were performed without following the principles of asepsis. As a result, 40% of maternal deaths were caused by sepsis (half following delivery and half associated with illegally induced abortion) with the remaining deaths primarily attributed to hemorrhage and toxemia.

Note, please, that with issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

Maternal mortality rates for the 20th century, according to the CDC, looked like this:



This is all maternal deaths, from abortion, miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, complications of childbirth, and so forth. You can see that the 20th Century got off to a good start, improving maternal health, but that trend would later level off, and then reverse itself temporarily, before taking the downward trend that would continue for the rest of the century.

Note also the total lack of even the faintest blip on the trends with the legalization of abortion in the beginning of the 1970s.

With that established, let's look at the sample of cases I've been unable to uncover during 1900. Please note that these cases are chosen purely because I could find information about them, and not because I thought a particular woman's story made a particular political point.

January 12, 1900: Ida Henry died after an abortion performed by Dr. Paulina Bechtel.

January 22, 1900: Barbara Shelgren died of complications of an abortion performed by Paulina Bechtel, who in this case was identified as a midwife -- but elsewhere she was described as a physician. At that time, doctors, especially female doctors, who delivered babies were referred to as midwives, so Bechtel was most likely a physician.

March 5, 1900: Alice Koester died from an abortion performed by Maria Janke, who was described as a "professional", but whose specific profession was not listed.

June 28, 1900: Mrs. Jorgenson died of an abortion under the care of Anna Pihlgren, identified as a nurse or midwife.

July 2, 1900: Sarah Bonda died receiving an abortion under the care of midwife Martha Heisig.

August 4, 1900: Mary Borglun died after an abortion performed by Mary Kempfer, who was a nurse or a midwife.

I analyzed who performed these fatal abortions, as well as those performed 1902-1909 and 1901, and got this picture of who performed the fatal abortions:



That's:

Doctors - 60%

Midwives - 24%

Unknown or undetermined - 8%

Self - 8%

This is in keeping with estimates, that roughly 90% of pre-legalization abortions were being done by doctors, made when Planned Parenthood held a conference in 1955. As people turned to doctors for more care, rather than to midwives or to friends and relatives, they'd turn to doctors more for abortions as well. Also, doctors would likely be underrepresented among those performing fatal abortions, if only because they're more likely to be able to come up with a likely alternative explanation for a death.

For more about abortion deaths in specific years, see this post.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in the 19th Century

I have no information on overall maternal mortality, or abortion mortality, in the 19th century. I imagine it can't be too much different from maternal and abortion mortality at the very beginning of the 20th Century. This is the picture the CDC paints in Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Healthier Mothers and Babies:

Maternal mortality rates were highest in this century during 1900-1930. Poor obstetric education and delivery practices were mainly responsible for the high numbers of maternal deaths, most of which were preventable. Obstetrics as a speciality was shunned by many physicians, and obstetric care was provided by poorly trained or untrained medical practitioners. Most births occurred at home with the assistance of midwives or general practitioners. Inappropriate and excessive surgical and obstetric interventions (e.g., induction of labor, use of forceps, episiotomy, and cesarean deliveries) were common and increased during the 1920s. Deliveries, including some surgical interventions, were performed without following the principles of asepsis. As a result, 40% of maternal deaths were caused by sepsis (half following delivery and half associated with illegally induced abortion) with the remaining deaths primarily attributed to hemorrhage and toxemia.

Note, please, that with issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

With that established, let's look at the sample of cases I've been unable to uncover during this period. Please note that these cases are chosen purely because I could find information about them, and not because I thought a particular woman's story made a particular political point.

1. January 20, 1846: Mary Ackerly was kept in a brothel by the father of her baby while he arranged for Dr. Shove to perform an abortion on her, very much against her will.
   
   
2. February, 1854: Jessie Wicks was referred to Mrs. M. J. Bord for an abortion; I've been unable to determine Bord's profession.
   
   
3. October, 1854: Mary Stone died after dosing herself with oil of tansey to do a home abortion.
   
   
4. June 11, 1857: Emma Post went with her lover for what she'd thought was to be a social visit; instead he brought her to a brothel and arranged for an abortion by Dr. Lewis Dix.
   
   
5. September, 1857: Martha Lockdoy died after Mrs. Halm, "calling herself an Indian Doctress", gave her an abortifacient.
   
   
6. January 29, 1858: Olive Ash, with the help of her twin sister and her cousin, arranged an abortion by Dr. William Howard.
   
   
7. February 13, 1858: Jemima Beneway left her home, ostensibly to get married and meet her new husband's family; instead her lover took her to the office of a professional lay abortionist in New York.
   
   
8. May 19, 1858: Amelia Weber died at the home of Dr. Charles Cobel; Cobel's behavior after her death brought on the investigation which revealed that she'd died from an abortion.
   
   
9. August, 1858: Susan Webster died after an abortion performed by Dr. D. Brown.
   
   
10. August 13, 1858: Ann Regan died after a secret abortion by an unknown perpetrator.
    
    
11. 1859: Mary Kirkpatrick died after her boss, who had gotten her pregnant, gave her an abortifacient.
    
    
12. September 3, 1859: Mary Visscher told everybody she was going for a social visit, but instead went to the practice of two female physicians, Elizabeth Byrns and Mary E. Smith, for an abortion.
    
    
13. February, 1860: Cordelia Calkins died from taking oil of tansey her lover's brother had obtain to cause an abortion.
    
    
14. February 11, 1861: Caroline Malinken died after her husband's doctor, John H. Joecken, assured her than an abortion would be "the easiest thing imaginable, and that in eight days all would be over."
    
    
15. 1863: Louisa Hullsberger died from an abortion performed by Dr. A. L. Alstead.
    
    
16. May 4, 1865: Emma Wolfer died after her physician-lover got her an abortifacient and arranged for another doctor to perform aftercare.
    
    
17. March 16, 1869: Magdalena Philippi died from an abortion performed by Dr. Gabriel Wolff, but Wolff couldn't be prosecuted because nobody could prove that Magdalena had felt fetal movement prior to the abortion. This led to a bill being passed to eliminate the "quickening" clause in New York abortion law, to make cases easier to prosecute.
    
    
18. August 23, 1870: Mrs. Lafavor, a young bride, died after taking an abortifacient provided to her by her landlord.
    
    
19. April 27, 1871: Elvira Woodward died after an abortion performed by Dr. Charles P. Wood.
    
    
20. December, 1871: Amanda McCoy died at the home of Dr. Fahlbusch, a female physician/midwife.
    
    
21. 1874: Mary Dix died after an abortion performed by Dr. W. F. Aiken.
    
    
22. December, 1874: Belle Wertz was about to be buried when an investigation broke out and it was determined that Dr. Hilt had performed a fatal abortion on her.
    
    
23. December, 1874: Zilpha West died from an abortion evidently arranged by her lover's father.
    
    
24. March 7, 1875: Antoinette Fennor died after an abortionist performed by career lay abortionist Mrs. Catherine Maxwell.
    
    
25. July 4, 1875: Miss Bertram, engaged to be married soon, tried two different abortifacients until she found one that killed her near-term infant. However, it was equally, if more slowly, fatal for her as well.
    
    
26. November, 1875: Mary Foorman died after her brother arranged an abortion with two doctors, Mansuer and McIvaine; after her death, he helped them dispose of her body.
    
    
27. August 16, 1876: Margaretta Velth died after an abortion by a perpetrator who's identity I've been unable to determine.
    
    
28. July 26, 1877: Mrs. Boschen was found dead in the Chicago office of Dr. Muleck.
    
    
29. October 20, 1877: Nellie Ryan died after an abortion performed by midwife Amelia Spork.
    
    
30. January 3, 1878: Maggie Gibbons died after an abortion performed by Charles P. Emerich, whose profession I have been unable to determine.
    
    
31. January, 1880: Mary McCarty died after an abortion performed by Dr. Banks; news coverage said that she was the "unsuspecting and unfortunate victim of the criminal or culpably stupid operation", so she might not have realized that her husband had arranged for Banks to do an abortion.
    
    
32. August 20, 1880: M. Faulkner died at the office of Dr. Thomas J. Cream during an abortion.
    
    
33. June 25, 1882: Ruth Phillips confessed on her deathbed to her sisters that their father had been the father of her stillborn twins, and that she herself had used instruments to abort the babies.
    
    
34. July 1, 1882: Gussie Ellergood, a servant working in the home of Dr. Edgar Park, named Dr. R. McWilliams as the person who performed her fatal abortion.
    
    
35. January 29, 1883: Adeline Savroch died after an abortion performed by midwife Bertha Twachaus.
    
    
36. October, 1883: Mrs. O'Connor died from a botched abortion, and "Dr. Archibald Lawson, a prominent physician, has fled to avoid arrest."
    
    
37. July 27, 1884: Lizzie Cook died suddenly, amid secrecy that aroused suspicion; this led to the arrest of Dr. Ira T. Richmond for performing a fatal abortion on her.
    
    
38. December 23, 1885: Sylvia Sawdy died after an abortion performed by her lover.
    
    
39. November 28, 1888: Mrs. Libby died after taking an abortifacient she bought from "a traveling doctor who made a specialty of selling such drugs."
    
    
40. March 8, 1889: Miss Bellville had previously performed a successful abortion on herself, using an instrument and instructions provided by her lover; her attempt to abort another pregnancy proved fatal.
    
    
41. July 12, 1889: Annie Doran died at the practice of somebody who was a midwife, perhaps a physician/midwife.
    
    
42. February 16, 1890: Mary Keegan died after an abortion performed by Mrs. Annie Schneider, whose profession I've been unable to determine.
    
    
43. December 22, 1891: Tillie Thom was found dead at the office of Dr. Franklin Brooks in Chicago from an abortion he'd performed.
    
    
44. April, 1893: Ada Hawk's lover first tried to get two different men to marry her, then went in search of an abortionist. He found "a doctor and an old woman" to do the job.
    
    
45. April 27, 1896: Emily LeBinney underwent an abortion by midwife Mary Schott. The baby, born alive, was tossed into the river. Emily died shortly afterward.
    
    
46. April 19, 1898: Hughretta Binkley died after an abortion by Dr.Belle Howard.
    
    
47. March 16, 1899: Harriet Reece was the first abortion death I've learned of attributed to Dr. Louise Hagenow.
    
    
48. April 25, 1899: Sarah Messinger died after an abortion performed by Marie Kampfer, whose profession I have been unable to determine.
    
    
49. June 23, 1899: Cora Burke died after an abortion performed by Dr. R. J. Alcorn in his room at a boardinghouse.
    
    
50. August 16, 1899: Mrs. Vacicek died after an abortion performed by Mary Koupal, whose profession I've been unable to determine.
    
    
51. September 2, 1899: Marie Hicht was the second abortion death I know of attributed to Dr. Louise Hagenow.
    
    
52. September 23, 1899: Mary Kakacek died after an abortion performed by midwife Annie Stonek.

Here is the breakdown of who performed this sample of fatal 19th Century abortions:



"Lay Abortionist" is somebody with no formal medical training that I know of, but who was a practicing abortionist nonetheless. "Amateur" is somebody who had no formal medical training and did not routinely perform abortions. "Unknown" is used when it was either unknown who did the abortion, or I was unable to determine the person's profession. And I counted all abortifacient abortions as self-induced unless the woman got the drugs from a physician or other trained medical professional.

The breakdown, in descending order, is:

Doctor - 54.90%

Unknown - 17.65%

Self - 11.76%

Midwife - 9.80%

Professional Lay Abortionist - 3.92%

Amateur - 1.96%

If we look only at the cases in which I was able to determine the profession of the perpetrator, our breakdown looks like this:

Doctor - 66.67%

Self - 14.29%

Midwife - 11.90%

Professional Lay Abortionist - 4.76%

Amateur - 2.68%

For a further breakdown of abortion deaths since the 19th Century, see this post.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion Deaths in the 1970s

In response to a comment about Abortion Deaths in 1971, I'm gathering the entire decade in one place. Here, to place the mortality trends in their accurate context, is a chart showing abortion deaths from 1965-1985. Legal abortions are orange, illegal abortions are purple, and "undetermined" or "unknown" -- a new category developed by the CDC for abortion deaths in which they were unable to determine if the person who performed the fatal abortion was a properly licensed physician -- are grey.

The CDC doesn't publish abortion mortality data prior to 1972, but I did find data that Physicians for Life got from the National Center for Health Statistics. I've assessed elsewhere how accurate the data are, looking at an intensive study in Minnesota and another in California, and though they're not 100% complete, they're not radically off, and the trends (falling except for the 1950s) are accurate. From 1971 onward, my numbers are from the Centers for Disease Control.

Remember that "illegal" deaths as counted by the CDC (1972 and later) can actually be cases like Myrta Baptiste -- cases in which the woman thought the abortion was legal and safe, but after she died the CDC discovered that her doctor's license wasn't currently valid and so counted it as illegal.

1970 - The NCHS noted 119 induced abortion deaths for 1970 -- 10 legal, 109 illegal. (Spontaneous abortions are miscarriages.) I have been able to document 13 deaths -- all from legal abortions in 1970. This means the NCIS missed at least three deaths.

1971 - The NCHS noted 90 induced abortion deaths for 1971 -- 15 legal, 75 illegal. (Spontaneous abortions are miscarriages.) I have been able to document 23 deaths from abortions in 1971. That means the NCHS found 63 more deaths than I know about.

1972 - The CDC counts 65 -- 24 legal, 29 illegal, and 2 unknown. I know of 16 abortion deaths in 1972, which means the CDC has at least 49 other deaths I don't know about.

1973 (Roe legalizes nationwide) - The CDC counts 47 -- 25 legal, 19 illegal, and 3 unknown. I know of 8 abortion deaths in 1973, which means the CDC has at least 29 other deaths I don't know about.

1974 - The CDC counts 33 -- 26 legal, 6 illegal, and 1 unknown. I know of 13 abortion deaths in 1974, which means the CDC has at least 20 other deaths I don't know about.

1975 - The CDC counts 34 -- 29 legal, 4 illegal, and 1 unknown. I know of 10 abortion deaths in 1975, one of which the CDC won't count, which means the CDC has at least 25 other deaths I don't know about. On the other hand, I have at least one that the CDC didn't count, because they refuse to lay responsibility on abortion doctors for their inexcusable failure to diagnose ectopic pregnancies.

1976 - The CDC counts 14 -- 11 legal, 2 illegal, and 1 unknown. I know of 5 abortion deaths in 1976, which means the CDC has at least 9 other deaths I don't know about.

1977 - The CDC counts 21 -- 17 legal and 4 illegal. (One of these was Myrta Baptiste, who had her abortion at the same clinic as three other women who died in the 1970s, but is counted as illegal even though she thought it was legal because her doctor's license was suspended at the time.) I know of 6 abortion deaths in 1977, which means that the CDC knows of 15 other deaths.

1978 - The CDC counts 16 -- 9 legal and 7 illegal. I know of 6 abortion deaths in 1978, one of which was related to an abortionist's failure to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy and thus not counted by the CDC. That means that there are 11 other abortion deaths for 1978 that I don't know about.

1979 - The CDC counts 22 -- all legal. I know of 8, which means that the CDC knows of 14 that I don't know about.

Some of you may be saying, "Why should the CDC count ectopic pregnancy deaths as abortion deaths?" The answer is simple: Ectopic pregnancy deaths after abortion attempts simply should not happen.

I hope this puts abortion deaths in the 1970s in context. If you go to the individual years and read the women's individual stories, the combination of statistical and anecdotal data should help you come to an understanding of how and why women die from induced abortions in the United States.

Two searches: Alicon Porcella, and wife-killing abortionists

Allison Porcella is one of the people who signed the Planned Parenthood petition, based on a hoax, attacking CPCs. She added her own comment: "By deceiving women you are making an extremely stressful situation much harder,whereas panic will set in and more women will die." Consider the women who died because they trusted abortion facilities in general, Planned Parenthood in particular. Or aren't they women? Or don't they count? And why don't we compare these deaths to the number of women who have died after trusting these prolife pregnancy centers. Count 'em: ZERO.

doctor abortion murder wife: We have three that I know of to choose from: John Baxter Hamilton, who bludgeoned his wife to death in the bathroom of their home on Valentine's Day; Joe Bills Reynolds, who sliced open his wife's abdomen and let her bleed to death while he was ostensibly doing a liposuction; and Malachy DeHenre, who shot his wife dead in their home. Wife-killing abortionist trifecta complete.

Abortion Deaths in 1937

We need some perspective first. All surgery of any sort in 1937 was done without the aid of modern blood transfusion and antibiotics. All surgery of any sort in this era was riskier than similar surgery today. This is the era where kitchen-table surgery was phasing out in favor of hospital-based surgery. I have an obstetrical nursing textbook from this era that describes how to set up an operating table in the woman's home to perform a c-section.

Blood banks were cutting-edge battlefield medicine just a few years before, and had not yet come into common usage. Blood type compatibility was not yet understood. It wasn't until the late 1930s and early 1940s that things like separating blood products started to come into practice. Antibiotics were not manufactured and used widely until after WWII. (See chart, below)

So keep in mind that things that may seem appalling to us in the early 21st century -- such as performing surgery in one's home -- was not appalling at the time. Things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.

With that said, I can't find any numbers for abortion mortality prior to 1940. It seems that before that, the information available lumps all maternal mortality together, and abortions can't be sorted out. But we can hazard a guess that the numbers were at least as high as they were in 1940. How much higher? It's hard to say.



So our best guess, based on what I've been able to find, is about 1,400 deaths a year from abortions in the late 1920s and early 1930s -- a number that would combine illegal abortions, the rare "therapeutic abortion" performed as a last-ditch attempt to save a dying woman, and miscarriages.

With that established, let's look at some examples of women who died, and who did their abortions:

Rugh Haught died at University Hospital in Hobart, Oklahoma of blood poisoning from an apparent self-induced abortion.

Jane Roe of 1937 died after an abortion performed by Dr. Samuel Roth in his office.

Jane Roe of Newark died after an abortion performed by Dr. Charles I. Gordon.

Eleanor Haynes died at Hackensack Hospital in New Jersey after indicating that Dr. P. Ralph McFeely had performed an abortion on her.

Here is the breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've identified for the 1930s:



*Doctor: 73.68%
*Perpetrator or perpetrator's profession unknown: 15.79%
*Other medical professional: 7.89%
*Self: 2.63

For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Carolina Gutierrez: The abortion

Carolina Gutierrez, who had come to the United States as a refugee from Nicaragua at age 13, was 20 years old when she went to Maber Medical Center in Miami for an abortion on December 19, 1995. Carolina's husband did not want her to have the abortion, so Carolina got a friend to drive her back and forth to the clinic.

The evening after her abortion, Carolina had pain in her chest and abdomen. She called the clinic for help, but whoever answered the phone hung up on her.

What followed will unfold on this blog over the same time it played out in real life.

1926: Abortion by midwife proves fatal for Chicago woman

On December 20, 1926, 23-year-old Mary Paradowski died in a Chicago hospital of complications of a criminal abortion that had been performed on December 13. An investigation lead to the indictment of midwife Josephine Petrova for felony murder in Mary's death.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion Deaths, 1933-1936

We need some perspective first. All surgery of any sort in the 1930s was done without the aid of modern blood transfusion and antibiotics. All surgery of any sort in this period was riskier than similar surgery today. This is the era where kitchen-table surgery was phasing out in favor of hospital-based surgery. I have an obstetrical nursing textbook from this era that describes how to set up an operating table in the woman's home to perform a c-section.

Blood banks were cutting-edge battlefield medicine just a few years before, and had not yet come into common usage. Blood type compatibility was not yet understood. It wasn't until the late 1930s and early 1940s that things like separating blood products started to come into practice. Antibiotics were not manufactured and used widely until after WWII. (See chart, below)

So keep in mind that things that may seem appalling to us in the early 21st century -- such as performing surgery in one's home -- was not appalling at the time. Things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.

With that said, I can't find any numbers for abortion mortality prior to 1940. It seems that before that, the information available lumps all maternal mortality together, and abortions can't be sorted out. But we can hazard a guess that the numbers were at least as high as they were in 1940. How much higher? It's hard to say.



So our best guess, based on what I've been able to find, is about 1,400 deaths a year from abortions in the late 1920s and early 1930s -- a number that would combine illegal abortions, the rare "therapeutic abortion" performed as a last-ditch attempt to save a dying woman, and miscarriages.

With that established, let's look at some examples of women who died, and who did their abortions:

April 19, 1933: "Nina" Roe died after her boyfriend found her a couple of unsuccessful abortifacients and finally arranged an abortion to be performed by a doctor at a rest home.

May, 1934: Annette Camoratto died from complications of an abortion attributed to Dr. Harry A Felice.

July 10, 1934: Marian Mills died after an abortion by a perpetrator whose identity I've been unable to determine.

December 24, 1934: Loretta Wilson's nude body was found dumped in a thicket; Dr. John H. Becker Jr. was identified as the abortionist.

1935: Edith Eschrich died of an abortion; Dr. Tobias Ginsberg and his nurse were arrested but later released.

April 11, 1935: Doris Jones died from complications of an abortion performed by Dr. Guy E. Brewer.

November 17, 1935: Georgia McGill's father identified Dr. W. R. Mitchell as the man responsible for his daughter's death.

January 29, 1936: Rose Lipner died at Riverdale Hospital after an abortion performed by Dr. Maxwell C. Katz.

October 23, 1936: Katherine DiDonato had bought pills from drug clerk Hyman Kantor, who had then recommended Dr. Aloysius Mulholland to perform an abortion.

Here is the breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've identified for the 1930s:



*Doctor: 73.68%
*Perpetrator or perpetrator's profession unknown: 15.79%
*Other medical professional: 7.89%
*Self: 2.63



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

For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1932

All of the deaths I could find information about for 1932 were part of the same cluster of deaths in Oklahoma.

Isobel Ferguson was one of a cluster of women who died under the care of two physicians in the University of Oklahoma area, J. W. Elsiminger and Richard E. Thacker.

Ruth Hall was another.

Nancy Jo Lee's death was blamed on Thacker alone.

Lennis May Roach also died under Thacker's care.

Robbie Lou Thompson also died under Thacker's care.

Virginia Wyckoff died under Eisiminger's care.

Here is the breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've identified for the 1930s:



*Doctor: 73.68%
*Perpetrator or perpetrator's profession unknown: 15.79%
*Other medical professional: 7.89%
*Self: 2.63



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

For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1923: Midwife implicated in fatal abortion

On December 18, 1923, 40-year-old Sophia Hartozinski died at Chicago's County Hospital due to a criminal abortion performed there that day. The coroner identified midwife Mary Roback as having been responsible for Sophia's death.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

How a safe, legal abortion can be illegal - or - How to hide a body by counting it

Myrta Baptiste, age 26, went for a safe and legal abortion of her 10 week pregnancy, performed by Orlando Zaldivar at Woman's Care Clinic December 18, 1982. But something went wrong, and eventually it occurred to somebody to send Myrta to a hospital.

Myrta arrived at the hospital in critical condition due to delay of transfer by the clinic staff. She bled to death from two uterine perforations. Zaldivar could not be reached for 7 hours while hospital staff were struggling to save his patient's life.

Upon investigating Myrta's death, the CDC discovered that Zaldivar's license was inactive at the time he performed Myrta's abortion, so they classified her death as being due to illegal abortion rather than legal abortion. This effectively lowered the US death toll from legal abortions by one that year, while still noting the death of a woman who sought a safe, legal abortion. The other deaths at that facility -- Ruth Montero, Shirley Payne, and Maura Morales -- were counted as legal abortion deaths.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1930

We need some perspective first. All surgery of any sort in 1930 was done without the aid of modern blood transfusion and antibiotics. All surgery of any sort in 1930 was riskier than similar surgery today. This is the era where kitchen-table surgery was phasing out in favor of hospital-based surgery. I have an obstetrical nursing textbook from this era that describes how to set up an operating table in the woman's home to perform a c-section.

Blood banks were cutting-edge battlefield medicine just a few years before, and had not yet come into common usage. Blood type compatibility was not yet understood. It wasn't until the late 1930s and early 1940s that things like separating blood products started to come into practice. Antibiotics were not manufactured and used widely until after WWII. (See chart, below)

So keep in mind that things that may seem appalling to us in the early 21st century -- such as performing surgery in one's home -- was not appalling at the time. Things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.

With that said, I can't find any numbers for abortion mortality prior to 1940. It seems that before that, the information available lumps all maternal mortality together, and abortions can't be sorted out. But we can hazard a guess that the numbers were at least as high as they were in 1940. How much higher? It's hard to say.



So our best guess, based on what I've been able to find, is about 1,400 deaths a year from abortions in the late 1920s and early 1930s -- a number that would combine illegal abortions, the rare "therapeutic abortion" performed as a last-ditch attempt to save a dying woman, and miscarriages.

With that established, let's look at some examples of women who died, and who did their abortions:

Genevieve Arganbright died after an abortion performed by Dr. Claude C. Long in his San Francisco office.

Alberta Beard died at the office of Dr. Davis Lucas from an abortion performed there that day.

Ethel Crowell died in the office of Dr. Hans Paulsen, from an abortion performed on her that day.

Evelyn Dellorto died from an abortion believed to have been performed at the office of Dr. Frank Psota.

Marie Epperson was the first in a string of Oklahoma City abortion deaths attributed to doctors J. W. Elsiminger and Richard E. Thacker.

Grace Iorio died from an illegal abortion in the Chicago home of midwife Stepina Pazkiewicz.

Dorothy Jasinski died after an abortion by an unknown perpetrator.

Matilda Kleinschmidt died from an abortion, believed to have been performed in the office of Dr. J. Murney Nicholson.

Sonia Raggins died from an illegal abortion performed at an unknown location by an unknown person.

Jeanette Reder died from an abortion performed at the Chicago office of Dr. Emil Gleitsman.

"Eudora" Roe died after an abortion performed in Wichita by Dr. C.C. Keester.

Mary Tulis died from an abortion performed by an unknown perpetrator.

Here is the breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've identified for the 1930s:



*Doctor: 73.68%
*Perpetrator or perpetrator's profession unknown: 15.79%
*Other medical professional: 7.89%
*Self: 2.63



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

For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Ximena survived abortion, attempted infanticide. Happy birthday.

At 3:20 a.m. on December 17, 1985, 22-year-old Nadine Bourne gave birth to her baby while seated on a toilet at Vancouver General Hospital. The little girl weighed about three pounds -- consistent with an infant of 30 or 31 weeks gestation, well into the third trimester. The trouble was, Nadine had been admitted to Vancouver General Hospital the day before to be treated for fever and rapid pulse after an abortion she'd undergone four days earlier at a Bellingham, Washington Planned Parenthood. Nadine had told hospital staff that she'd been 14 to 16 weeks pregnant. Dr. Jaroudi, a resident summoned by the Emergency Room physician when Nadine was admitted, examined the young woman but failed to notice that she was still pregnant. The baby came as a complete and very unwelcome surprise to everybody.

A nurse, Vera Wood, did not call a resuscitation team or an infant transport team to take the shivering, whimpering, gasping infant to Children's hospital. Instead, according to court records, "She took the baby into the service room where dead fetuses are stored, and left it there [in a bedpan] for 40 minutes."

Thomas Berger, an attorney representing the child and her adoptive family noted, "We could prove that Vera Wood and other nurses did nothing to suction the baby or to provide warmth or oxygen for the child. Our case was that the baby suffered severe [trauma] as a result of these acts or omissions by VGH and its employees, resulting in brain damage in the form of mental retardation and cerebral palsy." After 40 minutes, nurse Wood called the night nursing supervisor, Joyce Hatherall, who cleared the baby's air passages, provided warmth and called for oxygen.

Mr. Berger also said, "We also had evidence that Dr. Jaroudi, called up to the ward, realized the baby had been delivered by Nadine Bourne, and realized it was viable, but nevertheless told the nurses not to resuscitate the baby ('...let it go')." Which, while not exactly rushing to the child's aid, was an improvement over what William Waddill did while nurses were attempting to resuscitate Baby W. in a California hospital. Jaroudi's attempt to complete the abortion was limited to an order to let the baby die, an order Joyce Hatherall ignored.

But even after Hatherall's intervention, the baby was placed on a metal counter, where she likely suffered further hypothermia. And when Jaroudi finally contacted the transport team for Children's Hospital, he gave them insufficient information, causing an additional half-hour delay in providing care to the baby.

That neglected baby, left to die, has since been adopted. And she has a name: Ximena Renearts. But thanks to the attempts on her life both before and after her birth, she suffered permanent brain damage. She is quadriplegic and has the mental capacity of a three-year-old.

BC police made two abortive (how appropriate!) investigations of the case, with spokesman Sergeant Bob Cooper calling the case "bullshit", comparing it to cases where children die when being delivered by midwives. Which leaves me wondering if BC midwives routinely leave premature infants in metal bedpans in the closet for over half an hour at a time before somebody else comes along and provides care over the midwives' objections.

Part of the reason for the callous attitude of the police may be that the spokesman for the BC Minister of Health's Office, Michelle Stewart, is dismissive of the issue of infants born live during abortions, commenting, "As you know, this Ministry is very much in favor of giving women choices about their reproductive health." British Columbia's Chief Coroner Larry Campbell included a letter in a report on such live births, and dismissed them as to be expected in abortion and therefore outside the purview of BC coroners, who only get involved if a death is "unexpected". In other words, at least in British Columbia, abortion is 100% about achieving the death of the infant, even if the infant is born alive. Which leaves me to wonder if a perpetrator who shot Ximena dead tomorrow would face charges at all. Is she still, legally, only an aborted fetus?

The family filed suit against the hospital, the doctor, and the nurse, settling out of court for over $8 million, which will be used to build an accessible house for Ximena and to provide her with the care she will need for the rest of her life.

The hospital never conducted an internal review of how a live-born infant was treated like a pathology specimen on their premises, in violation of the law forbidding anyone to abandon or expose a child under the age of ten "so that its life is or is likely to be endangered or its health is or is likely to be permanently injured." Under Canadian law, having been born alive, Ximenia was a living human being entitled to full protection under the law. Prolife activists hold that charges of attempted murder might be more appropriate, since nurse Wood's intent in putting the child in the bedpan aside in a room for dead fetuses was to allow the baby to die and be sent to the pathology lab with the other results of recent abortions.

Ximena's adoptive mother, Margaret, says, "How can you ever bring justice when all the damage is done? I guess my big hope that what happened to Ximena won't be in vain. It could be you in the hospital and what if they feel that you're not worthy of life. We have to stop somewhere."

And it must be a sad overtone to every birthday Ximena's family celebrates, to realize that they're also celebrating the day she was stuck in a bedpan and left to die.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Abortion deaths in the 1950's

The CDC doesn't publish abortion mortality data prior to 1972, but I made this chart from information Physicians for Life got from the National Center for Health Statistics. I've assessed elsewhere how accurate the data are, looking at an intensive study in Minnesota and another in California, and though they're not 100% complete, they're not radically off, and the trends (falling except for the 1950s) are accurate.

With that said, here's the chart. Legal abortion deaths are orange, illegal abortion deaths are purple. The top line is the total of both legal and illegal.

I've looked at the period from 1945 to 1965, to give a context to the 1950s.



I have no idea why the trends in the 1950s look the way they do. After the precipitous drop in the 1940s, due to the development of antibiotics, transfusions, and other ways of treating sick and injured patients, we see the decline slow, then slowly reverse itself, until it resumes falling in 1962. There were no changes in the laws, and rubella and thalidomide -- causing an increase in birth defects -- were yet out on the horizon, so there was no reason for the number of abortions to rise. I even considered the Baby Boom, but the surge in births began before 1940, and more than half of this surge in births coincided with the massive plunge in abortion deaths from 1940 to 1950. Any theories?

Here are the deaths I know of for the 1950s. I didn't choose these deaths because I thought they made any particular point; they were just the ones I could find information on by searching Westlaw and old newspaper archives.

May 6, 1950: Vivian Campbell, according to the National Organization for Women (which does not cite its sources), Vivian died from a mysterious induced abortion. However, Vivian's daughter said that she learned "the truth" about her mother's death from the words "spontaneous abortion" on Vivian's death certificate. A spontaneous abortion, however, is a miscarriage. It's possible Vivian's daughter misunderstood and all the subsequent advocacy of legal abortion that was done under the banner of Vivian's name was all for a woman who had simply died of natural causes. Lamentable, but hardly related to abortion law or abortion practice.

May 26, 1950: Joy Joy bled to death from an abortion performed by Annis Whitlow Brow, whose profession I have been unable to determine.

February 6, 1952: Elizabeth "Betty" Hellman died of complications of an abortion performed by Jane McDaniel White, a professional lay abortionist.

November 12, 1952: Isabell Cuda died after an abortion performed by lay abortionist Mary Murawsky.

November 18, 1953: Joyce Chorney died from complications of an abortion performed by Dr. Alfred Joseph.

March 8, 1954: Ozelia Skains was found dead on the street after an abortion blamed on chiropractor John C. Gobischel.

April 4, 1954: Gertrude Pinsky was found dead in a private home in the Bronx during a raid on an abortion ring that yielded several licensed doctors and one unlicensed physician.

October 19, 1954: Betty Ladel died after an abortion attributed to naturopath Sylvia Redman.

November 18, 1954: Virginia Watson, former teammate of swimming star Esther Williams, died after an abortion she'd sought because she felt pregnancy would prevent her from following in Williams' footsteps and becoming a movie star.

April 21, 1955: Joyce Johnson died from complications of an abortion performed on her in a motel room by prochoice icon Harvey Karman.

August 24, 1955: Doris Ostreicher, an heiress, died after her mother arranged for an abortion performed by a bartender and his beautician wife.

December 24, 1955: Jacqueline Smith died after an abortion performed by a scrub nurse, at the behest of her boyfriend -- who then cut her body up, wrapped it in Christmas paper, and disposed of it in trash cans along side streets off Broadway.

December 9, 1956: Mary Davies died under the care of "The Angel of Ashland" -- famed criminal abortionist Dr. Robert Spencer.

February 10, 1957: Alice Kimberly died from complications of an abortion performed by veterinarian Ira Ledbetter.

September 18, 1958: Georgia Lee Cody was found dead in her home from complications of an abortion. The perpetrator was never identified.

Here is a breakdown of who performed these fatal abortions:

Non-physicians with medical training - 28.57%

Professional lay abortionist - 28.57%

Physician - 21.43%

Unknown (Perpetrator or perpetrator's profession not identified) - 21.43%

If we look only at those cases in which I was able to determine the profession of the perpetrator, the breakdown looks like this:

Non-physicians with medical training - 36.36%

Professional lay abortionist - 36.36%

Physician - 27.27%

I found this breakdown quite surprising, and a departure from the other pre-legalization decades, where physicians were the primary parties responsible for fatal abortions. I am theorizing that there might be some connection between this and the rise in abortion deaths during this decade.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Search: Gayna Uransky pictures

Gayna Uransky pictures: Well, I don't have pictures. But Gayna Uransky is one of the people who signed a Planned Parenthood petition, based on a hoax of lies and distortions. Gayna added the comment, "If the clinics presented both sides of this weighty question, it would be a good idea. Doesn't sound as though this is the case. Let's cut their funds." If not telling both sides justifies cutting funds, Gayna, you ought to be on the bandwagon to defund Planned Parenthood.

Come on, start with the fact that they used a hoax to get you to sign a petition. Are they really trustworthy?

They got my babysitter to consent to an abortion by falsely telling her that her 8-week fetus was just like a blood clot.

And check out the treatment these women got. Of the way these women were treated. Is this something you want to be funding?

Women have died because they trusted Planned Parenthood. Show me just one woman who has died because she trusted a CPC.

1925: A busy year for Chicago's notorious Dr. Hagenow

On December 16, 1925, 22-year-old Bridget Masterson died in her Chicago home from a botched abortion. Police were able to question Bridget prior to her death, but she refused to implicate anybody.

John O'Malley, a boarder and the father of Bridget's baby, committed suicide by gas after learning of Bridget's death. He left a note implicating "a lady doctor at 310 W. North Ave." This was the address of Dr. Lucy Hagenow, aka Louise Hagenow aka Ida Von Schulz.

There were a number of deaths in Chicago attributed to Hagenow, including:

1899: Marie Hecht

1906: Lola Madison

1907: Annie Horvatich

1925: Lottie Lowy, Nina H. Pierce, Jean Cohen, and Elizabeth Welter

1926: Mary Moorehead

Hagenow was typical of criminal abortionists in that she was a physician.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1984: Out of the frying pan and into the fire

On December 16, 1984, 43-year-old Mary Pena died at San Vicente Hospital in Los Angeles, leaving her husband to raise five children alone. She had been undergone a safe, legal abortion there the previous day.

Mary had thought that she was three months pregnant when she went to San Vicente, but doctors there discovered that she was actually 22 weeks pregnant. Either Edward Allred or Ruben Marmet performed the abortion. Afterward she was bleeding so heavily, a hysterectomy was performed in an effort to save her life. The surgery was not successful, and at 1:50 am on December 16, Mary died while on the operating table.

And here's where we see the cover-your-ass instinct of the back-alley butcher arise in the man who is a bastion of providers of safe and legal vital reproductive heath care services. The Investigator's Report states "Dr. Allred cleared the case with Coroner and body was released to the family picked mortuary ... and services held. When the death certificate was taken to Kern County Health Department they refused to accept it and called the case to Los Angeles Coroner. ... Mortuary in Bakersfield will bring body to this office for autopsy on morning of 12-20-84."

Allred had tried to hide the fact that Mary had died from a botched abortion. And, but for the diligence of a vital records clerk, he would have succeeded. Only after the clerk spoke up was the death certificate questioned, and the true cause of death determined: exsanguination due to cervical laceration due to therapeutic abortion. The cervix showed two lacerations - a small one that had been sutured and a large unsutured one extending through the full ring of the cervix.

Once a cause for the fatal hemorrhage was determined, the death certificate was accepted, and Mary was laid to rest again.

San Vicente, an abortion hospital, had been purchased by National Abortion Federation member Familiy Practice Associates Medical Group shortly before Mary's death. Natalie Meyers and Sara Lint had already died there. And Allred, who by his own admission never did a preventability study after a patient death, apparently didn't do much to improve conditions at San Vicente. Another patient, Joyce Ortenzio, died there in 1988. Over the years Allred and his abortionists killed at least a dozen women that I know of. Yet Allred's chain of abortion mills -- the largest for-profit chain of abortion facilities in the world -- remains in good standing with NAF. And Planned Parenthood continues to refer women there. Warnings that Allred is careless of patients' well-being fall on deaf ears.



For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1982: Obstructed bowel and death

On December 16, 1982, 38-year-old Barbara Auerbach was admitted to Princeton Medical Center in New Jersey. She was vomiting, suffering from back pain, and unable to void her bladder. Doctors struggled for three hours to save her life, but in vain.

The autopsy showed that Barbara had an obstruction of her small bowel, which caused massive infection throughout her body.

Her troubles had begun on December 11, when she had gone to a New York hospital for a safe, legal abortion and tubal ligation, to be performed together. Two days later, she was discharged, without anybody having noticed any trouble with infection or bowel obstruction.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1998: A lingering death from the best care available

On December 16, 1998, 29-year-old Venus Ortiz died in a New York nursing home. She had been there, in a vegetative state, for nearly six years. Her death had been set in motion at Eastern Women's Center in New York City -- a National Abortion Federation member clinic.



Venus Ortiz had been 23 years old when she went to Eastern for a safe, legal abortion on February 24, 1993. Evidence indicated that the abortion of Venus' approximately 15-week pregnancy was performed by a Dr. Leiber. Her family alleged that there was negligence in administering anesthesia to Venus, and failure to establish an airway. Brevital, fentanyl, and midazolam were administered in dosages and manners contrary to standards of practice, causing Venus to suffer a synergistic reaction.

Eastern's staff failed to promptly diagnose and attend to cardio-pulmonary arrest. Eastern's notes of 5:35 PM indicate "2:35 PM end of surgery ... we noticed patient's ashen color and the pulse oximeter tracing and digital readout were gone from the monitor." Emergency medical services were called. The reading of Venus' blood pressure at that time was 90/55; four minutes later it was recorded as being 146/62.

Venus was transported by ambulance to a hospital, accompanied by Dr. Cyrus, Dr. Goodman, and/or Dr. Jeffrey P. Moskowitz. However, the damage had already been done. Venus was left in permanent need of respirator, with profound brain damage. She was hospitalized a little over five months before being transferred to permanent nursing home care, where she remained, her condition unimproved, until her death.

To further underscore Eastern's neglect of patients' needs, the suit also noted that although this was her 4th abortion, Venus had not been referred to a social worker.

Two other patients, Dawn Ravenelle and Dawn Mack, also died of complications of abortions done at Eastern Women's Center.

But prochoicers pooh-pooh the idea that it's poor judgement to trust a NAF member to provide safe, professional abortion care.



For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Searches: Deaths, videos, songs, and more

Death abortion: There's bleeding to death from abortions. There's death from complications of the abortion anesthesia. There's death from embolisms. There's death from septic abortion. There are deaths from legal and therefore presumably safe abortions. You can see deaths broken down by year. For more information on abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice

Abortion videos: The best of the net I've gathered here.

Abortion songs: Some examples here, with videos.

Self abortion: Two words: Dumb idea. If you're early enough in the pregnancy to carry it off with relatively low-risk abortion teas, you're still likely subjecting yourself to the risk for no reason, since you're at the stage where miscarriages are common anyway. If you weren't already in the process of having a miscarriage, taking enough of the stuff to kill the baby can kill you as well. Or you might have an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, and your attempts to do an abortion will delay diagnosis and appropriate care. If you're considering sticking things in your uterus, I'd give you the same two words -- Dumb idea -- but in italics, boldface, and underlined. You can poke a hole in your uterus or give yourself a nasty infection. And there is no such thing as a "natural" abortion. By definition you're doing something to thwart Mother Nature if you're trying to dislodge a fetus or embryo that your body is trying to hold on to. So go to a doctor and get some proper prenatal care.

Laws about abortion in the third trimester: Summed up here, with links to more information.

Illegal abortion: Most were performed by doctors. A small but significant minority were performed by nurses, medical students, or other people with some medical training. Even fewer were performed by people with no formal medical training, but who often had doctors providing training, equipment, drugs, and backup. Illegal abortions still happen occasionally for a variety of reasons.



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

Abortion deaths 2008: I don't know of any yet. Anybody?

Perforated bowel: I can only address those associated with abortions, and more particularly, fatal cases: "Julie" Roe, Moris Helen Herron, Ellen Williams, Sharon Hamplton (pictured, with son Curtis), and Sharon Davis, that I know of.

16-week abortion: Fatal.

Abortion deaths in the 1960's

The CDC doesn't publish abortion mortality data prior to 1972, but I made this chart from information Physicians for Life got from the National Center for Health Statistics. I've assessed elsewhere how accurate the data are, looking at an intensive study in Minnesota and another in California, and though they're not 100% complete, they're not radically off, and the trends (falling except for the 1950s) are accurate.

With that said, here's the chart. Legal abortion deaths are orange, illegal abortion deaths are purple. The top line is the total of both legal and illegal.



I'm not sure why abortion mortality went up from 1956 to 1961. What I do know is that there were no changes in abortion law to account for the plunge after 1961. This is actually the resumption of a trend that had been in place prior to 1950. The slight upturn from 1968-1970 coincides with the slight loosening of abortion laws in several states, but it seems unlikely that there is a connection; the trend went back down again and resumed its old fall with the legalization of abortion on demand in California and New York in 1970.

Here are the abortion deaths I know of during the 1960s. I didn't choose these particular stories to make a particular point; if I find out about an abortion death, I write it up.

January 21, 1961: Vivian Grant died from complications of an abortion Dr. Mandel M. Friedman performed on her. Doubly tragic is the fact that the autopsy found that Vivian hadn't actually been pregnant in the first place.

July 23, 1961: Erica Peterson was in an iron lung, gravely ill, when doctors got permission from her husband to perform the abortion that ended her life.

March 25, 1962: Jolene Griffith leaves three children motherless after an abortion performed by osteopath J. Bryan Henrie.

June 3, 1962: Barbara Lofrumento got chopped up and put down the garbage disposal when she died of abortion complications in Dr. Harvey Lothringer's office.

September 11, 1962: Barbara Covington, a wealthy socialite, died after an abortion performed by Dr. Mandel M. Friedman while he was out on bail pending prosecution for the death of Vivian Grant.

1964: Elva Lozada died in a California hospital from complications of a legal abortion.

June 4, 1964: Geraldine Santoro, poster child for the abortion lobby, was left to die on a motel room floor by her married lover, who was performing an abortion using instruments and medical books he had borrowed from a doctor who was married to one of his co-workers.

December 4, 1965: Rita Shea dies in a motel room during an abortion performed by medical student Benjamin Lockhart.

February 8, 1968: Nancy Ward travelled from Oklahoma to Missouri for an abortion performed by Dr. Richard Mucie at his ear, nose, and throat clinic. Her abortion was retroactively declared legal after Roe.

April 13, 1968: Stella Saenz went septic from a legal abortion, then had an allergic reaction to the penicillin she was given to treat it.

April 6, 1969: Catherine Barnard died after an abortion performed by Dr. Virgil Jobe.

August 16, 1969: Cheryl Vosseler died from complications of an abortion performed at Fresno General Hospital.

Here is the breakdown of who performed these fatal abortions:

Physician - 83.33%

Other medical professional - 8.33%

Amateur - 8.33%

Of the abortions performed by doctors, 4 of them (40%) were the safe, legal kind, performed in hospitals. That's 30% of the total deaths I've gotten information about for the 1960s.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Needless risk? "SWEET!"

Abortion Blogger went in for her chemical abortion today. Turns out they couldn't find the embryo on the ultrasound. So they gave her the abortion pill anyway, so she won't have to wait two weeks for a confirmed diagnosis.

Abortion Blogger's comment? "SWEET!"

They couldn't find an embryo. So they didn't definitively even diagnose an intrauterine pregnancy. But they gave her treatment based on that diagnosis. How is that responsible medicine?

She might actually have a blighted ovum (which will resolve on its own). But they gave her medication anyway, taking payment and subjecting her to risk.

She might have gestational trophoblastic disease, which sometimes resolves on its own but often requires specialized treatment. They didn't do a differential diagnosis to rule out this precancerous condition.

She might have an ectopic pregnancy. (At least they warned her that this is possible.) RU-486 is specifically contraindicated in patients with confirmed or suspected ectopic pregnancies:

CONTRAINDICATIONS

Administration of Mifeprex and misoprostol for the termination of pregnancy (the “treatment procedure”) is contraindicated in patients with any one of the following conditions:

- Confirmed or suspected ectopic pregnancy or undiagnosed adnexal mass (the treatment procedure will not be effective to terminate an ectopic pregnancy) (see WARNINGS)

.... 4. Ectopic Pregnancy
Mifeprex is contraindicated in patients with a confirmed or suspected ectopic pregnancy since Mifeprex is not effective for terminating these pregnancies (see CONTRAINDICATIONS).

"SWEET!"?

At best, she's been subjected to a chemical regimen for a condition (intrauterine pregnancy) that she might not actually have. This woman might not even be pregnant. At worst, she's been subjected to a chemical regimen that is contraindicated for the condition she actually does have.

The clinic got the money either way. And she's glad enough to not have to wait two weeks to start treatment that she doesn't seem to care that they took her money and risked her health when she might not even be pregnant in the first place.

She's gonna have to come back in two weeks anyway for her follow up exam. Why not come back in two weeks and find out what the heck is going on? Why not come back in two weeks and get treatment based on what her actual medical condition is, rather than what everybody's willing to simply assume it is? Or -- more to the point -- why not arrange for serial HCGs or other ongoing supervision of the suspected (and potentially lethal) ectopic pregnancy?

Sometimes I wonder.

1979: Left unattended, abortion patient dies

"Faye" was 19 years old when she went to Dr. Andre Nehorayoff's office for a safe and legal abortion on December 15, 1979. Nehorayoff failed to record an adequate history or medical exam for Faye. He left Faye in a recovery room at 2:25 p.m., without any monitoring. When somebody finally checked on her an hour later, she was cyanotic (blue) and had no pulse. She was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Nehorayoff was disciplined by the medical board for his poor care of Faye, as well as regarding Patient E, an 18-year-old patient who bled to death after Nehorayoff sent her home in 1983 with a fetal leg still in her uterus.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1971: Safe, legal, deadly

On December 15, 1971, 22-year-old LaSandra Russ of Berkley, California, died at Memorial Hospital of Hawthorne. Doctors had been trying to revive her since she had gone into cardiac arrest the day before almost immediately after her abortion had been completed. LaSandra had been admitted on December 13, since at that time all legal abortions in California were performed in hospitals.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Searchs: A motley assortment

Deaths from illegal abortion in 2007: Sorry, but the only abortion deaths I know of for 2007 were of the safe, legal kind: Edrica Goode and Laura Hope Smith.

how best to abort a 5 week fetus: Don't. First of all, ambivalence and even rejection of the pregnancy are normal early on. Usually this ambivalence resolves when something happens that helps the woman to see the baby as real and alive, which used to be "quickening" (feeling the first movement) at around 16 weeks. But with ultrasounds and the ability to hear the baby's heartbeat, this bonding often takes place much earlier. Second, you're still at a period of high risk for miscarriage. So odds are that if you wait until after 12 weeks, one of two things will have happened: Either you'll have had a chance to get past the initial ambivalence and be glad you're having a baby, or the whole issue will have gone away on its own, either because you miscarried, or because you had a molar pregnancy or blighted ovum that resolved on its own, or because your pregnancy was ectopic and an abortion would have only increased your risk of dying. Give yourself time to adjust. If, after seeing the baby on ultrasound and hearing the heartbeat, you still want it dead, you can get it killed later. But you'll be doing it because you really do want the baby to die, and not just because of normal, self-limiting early pregnancy emotional turmoil.

Self abortion: Two words: Dumb idea. If you're early enough in the pregnancy to carry it off with relatively low-risk abortion teas, you're still likely subjecting yourself to the risk for no reason, since you're at the stage where miscarriages are common anyway. If you weren't already in the process of having a miscarriage, taking enough of the stuff to kill the baby can kill you as well. Or you might have an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, and your attempts to do an abortion will delay diagnosis and appropriate care. If you're considering sticking things in your uterus, I'd give you the same two words -- Dumb idea -- but in italics, boldface, and underlined. You can poke a hole in your uterus or give yourself a nasty infection. And there is no such thing as a "natural" abortion. By definition you're doing something to thwart Mother Nature if you're trying to dislodge a fetus or embryo that your body is trying to hold on to. So go to a doctor and get some proper prenatal care.

Dr. Arnold Bickham: Quack abortionist extraordinaire.

Bad abortion stories: Where do I begin? Just browse the blog. Though there are some heartbreaking ones involving teens. And how about these cases: Jammie Garcia drowned in her own feculent fluids because her abortionist had shoved her fetus into her bowl and left it there to block things up; Carolina Gutierrez (pictured) endured the amputation of her gangrenous limbs in a futile attempt to save her from abortion-related sepsis; Lawson Akpolonu was raping patients in his filthy clinic -- something Diane Sawyer considered "a non-story" when we tipped her off; abortionist James Park's method of disposing of late-term fetuses -- running them through a meat grinder -- was enough to make fellow abortionist Curts Stover lose his lunch. There are these guys -- they're pretty nasty, with the one guy doing abortions at home and tossing the mangled fetuses in the trash and so forth. We have some guys dumping fetuses down the garbage disposal. Then there's this place, where employees complained to the state that their boss was eating the fetuses. What happened to this woman during her safe and legal abortion is pretty bad. Keep coming, I've got more.

why doctors have to recommend abortions to save the mother: Cases (aside from tubal pregnancies, which aren't actually treated by abortion in the first place) where a doctor actually would have to recommend an abortion are so rare as to be practically non-existent. Though some will recommend abortion anyway out of ignorance, laziness, or fear of lawsuits.

Can't cope abortion: I don't know if this person means she can't cope after an abortion -- in which case she should get help from a post-abortion program -- or if she means she's pondering abortion because she feels she can't cope. If it's the latter, she needs to know that feelings of being unable to cope are normal in early pregnancy. But pregnancy takes a long time to progress from initial panic to the day you put the baby in the bassinette. That gives you plenty of time to pass from "I can't deal with this!" to "How did I live before you?" As Dr. Alec Bourne said, "Those who plead for an extensive relaxation of the law [against abortion] have no idea of the very many cases where a woman who, during the first three months, makes a most impassioned appeal for her pregnancy to be 'finished,' later, when the baby is born, is thankful indeed that it was not killed while still an embryo. During my long years in practice I have had many a letter of the deepest gratitude for refusing to accede to an early appeal." Give yourself time. And contact a pregnancy center for help and support.

What is the percent of abortions used as birth control?: Between 42% and 95%, depending on how you define it.

How can women die from abortion?: They bleed to death from abortions. They die from complications of the abortion anesthesia. They die from embolisms. They die from infections. Yes, they die. From abortions that are legal and therefore presumably safe.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:

Abortion songs: I have a collection here, with videos.

Mortality Trends: Can you spot Roe?

One of the data massage tricks the abortion lobby does to convince people that legal abortion saves lives is to compare abortion deaths from the five-year period prior to Roe to the five-year period after Roe. "Look!" they proclaim, "See the dramatic effect Roe vs. Wade had on abortion deaths!"

Was Roe really that significant an event in terms of reducing abortion mortality? I have come up with an exercise to see. I have abortion mortality data from 1940 through 2003. I wanted to pick 20-year periods so that we can look at what the trends were, and see if there is a sign that a particular event changed abortion mortality trends. If the claims of the abortion lobby are true, it should be easy to spot Roe vs. Wade on an unlabeled chart of abortion mortality, because of the sudden, clear drop in maternal deaths.

I went to a random number generator and had it choose for me 3 random years between 1940 and 1973, and then for each of those year I made a chart showing the abortion mortality for the 20-year period. Which of the following charts shows the impact of the first states legalizing abortion? Which charts shows the impact of Roe vs. Wade? Can you spot those two significant changes in the legal status of abortion?

Each bar shows the total number of abortion deaths for that year. I took off the numbers from the left hand side so that you'd be looking at trends to see where there was something that changed the trend, without giving you a clue from the numbers.

As you look at each chart, ask yourself these questions:

*What years does this chart illustrate?
*Which milestones of abortion law, if any, took place during these years?

Try to spot exactly where you think these milestones took place. Then answer the question and see if you were right.




Which charts show periods where there were major changes in abortion law? (There may be more than one right answer.)
Period A
Period B
Period C

Crisis search: YES ABORTION INFECTION CAN KILL YOU

Somebody came to my blog searching, "I've got an infection from abortion. Can I die?"

The answer is an unequivocal YES!

Get in touch with your family doctor ASAP, or go to the emergency room. If you don't have insurance, contact a CPC (They're under "abortion alternatives" in the Yellow Pages) and let them know you're sick after an abortion. I've seen many cases of CPCs, sidewalk counselors, and other groups of prolifers paying for abortion aftercare for injured women. To clarify for the sake of those readers who are SoMG, the CPC won't necessarily have a doctor who can provide care (though some do), but they are a resource to get a referral to a doctor and for paying medical bills if you're uninsured.

PLEASE GET HELP QUICKLY! Get seen by a doctor, or at the very least a triage nurse at an emergency room, even if the clinic is blowing you off and telling you that there's nothing to worry about.

If you're having trouble finding help, email me or post a comment here and I'll get you in touch with people in your city who can help you. DO NOT DELAY!

Abortion deaths since widespread legalization

With today's post on abortion deaths in 1970, I've completed my series of posts about abortion deaths since widespread legalization (which started in California and New York in 1970).

I have post for abortion deaths in:

1970

1971

1972

1973 (Roe legalizes nationwide)

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

The 1990s

Since 2000

I also have posts about abortion deaths prior to widespread legalization:

The 19th Century

1900

1901

1902-1909

1910-1919

The 1920s

1920-1921

1922

1923

1924

1925

1926

1927

1928

1929

1930

I don't have any information on specific abortion deaths in 1931.

1932

1933-1936

1937

1938-1939

The 1940s

1950s

The 1960s

Since I continue to notice people coming for searches of abortion deaths in specific years or decades, I will continue to fill in the gaps.

It's very important that we understand history. Prochoicers need to grasp that abortion being illegal doesn't mean no alternative but the coathanger, and prolifers need to understand that simply criminalizing abortion isn't enough. Only when we study the impact of laws and attitudes on abortion practice can we develop effective strategies for what most of us agree is a common goal: Reducing abortion. For, as with any other human evil, we can never make it entirely go away.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:





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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1970

The CDC doesn't publish abortion mortality data prior to 1972, but I did find this excellent chart from Physicians for Life. They got their data from the National Center for Health Statistics. I've assessed elsewhere how accurate the data are, looking at an intensive study in Minnesota and another in California, and though they're not 100% complete, they're not radically off, and the trends (falling except for the 1950s) are accurate.

With that said, here's the chart:



The NCHS noted 119 induced abortion deaths for 1970 -- 10 legal, 109 illegal. (Spontaneous abortions are miscarriages.)

I have been able to document 13 deaths -- all from legal abortions in 1970. This means the NCIS missed at least three deaths.

Denise Holmes died when bits of fetal bone marrow got into her bloodstream and were carried into her lungs. She was the first of at least a dozen deaths at one of Edward Allred's chain of for-profit abortion mills.

Sara Lint was the first death I know of at San Vincente abortion hospital.

Sharon Margrove died from a safe, legal abortion in California.

Katherine Morse, a Texas woman, bought an abortion tourism package to go to California for the abortion that killed her.

Maria Ortega underwent an outpatient abortion in New York; her doctor pushed the fetus through the back of her uterus into her abdomen without realizing that she'd done so, then sent Maria home thinking she hadn't actually been pregnant.

Barbara Riley submitted to a "therapeutic" abortion because of her history of sickle cell disease; the abortion triggered a fatal sickle cell crisis.

Carmen Rodriguez was subjected to a dangerous saline abortion even though it was counter-indicated due to her history of heart problems.

"Amanda" Roe travelled from Indiana to New York for a safe, legal abortion. She was sent home with the fetus rotting in her uterus, and died of sepsis.

"Judy" Roe went into cardiac arrest during her abortion, lapsed into a coma, and died days later without regaining consciousness.

"Kimberly" Roe went into cardiac arrest and died during her abortion, leaving two children motherless.

"Lori" Roe, age 16, was admitted to a Maryland hospital for a legal abortion that caused a fatal infection.

"Faye" S., age 16, was admitted to a hospital for a safe, legal abortion in 1969; she developed lingering complications and died seven months later, in March of 1970.

Pearl Schwier reacted to the anesthesia during an abortion at a New York hospital.

For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post. Or you can place them in the context of other abortion deaths in the 1970s, and the years surrounding the 1970s:



For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1991: Embolism turns safe abortion fatal for New York woman

Edith Cote was 38 years old when she submitted to a safe and legal abortion in New York. On December 14, 1991, she was unresponsive and was taken to the emergency room at Syosset Hospital. Hospital staff were unable to save Edith's life. Her cause of death was listed on her death certificate as pulmonary amniotic embolism (amniotic fluid in her blood interfering with her lung function) after an induced abortion.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Here's the scary part

Check out this dude in the FoxNews story:



He's Alex Bellini, and he looks about as crazy as you'd expect a guy to be who got it into his head to row a boat from Peru to Australia. Here's a dude who clearly doesn't have both oars in the water, if you get my drift.

But here's the scary part of the story, and I quote: "he is not the first person to row solo across the Pacific"

Where are these people? Do they all have that look in the eyes that says, "I've got squirrels juggling knives in my head" so that you know to give them a wise berth? Or do they look perfectly normal right up until they shove off?

Just think: some stranger you meet -- perhaps in an elevator, perhaps at a sports event -- may well be loco enough to have at some point gotten it into his head to cross the Pacific in a rowboat. Which leaves you to wonder what else they decide to try.

Abortion deaths in 1971

The CDC doesn't publish abortion mortality data prior to 1972, but I did find this excellent chart from Physicians for Life. They got their data from the National Center for Health Statistics. I've assessed elsewhere how accurate the data are, looking at an intensive study in Minnesota and another in California, and though they're not 100% complete, they're not radically off, and the trends (falling except for the 1950s) are accurate.

With that said, here's the chart:



The NCHS noted 90 induced abortion deaths for 1971 -- 15 legal, 75 illegal. (Spontaneous abortions are miscarriages.)

I have been able to document 23 deaths from abortions in 1971:

Cassandra Bleavins suffered numerous uterine lacerations and cervical lacerations; she bled to death.

Margaret Davis died of sickle-cell crisis triggered by her abortion.

Janet Forster was sent home with a mangled fetus rotting in her uterus; she died of sepsis.

Doris Grant bled to death despite an emergency hysterectomy.

Betty Hines died from abortion-triggered sickle cell crisis.

"Amy" Roe suffered a massive fatal embolism, leaving two children motherless.

"Annie" Roe went into cardiac arrest and died, leaving three children without a mother.

"Andrea" Roe died of a septic abortion, leaving six children motherless.

"Anita" Roe was injected with saline to kill the fetus, then sent home with the expectation that she'd deliver the dead baby unattended; she was found unresponsive, and bled to death.

"April" Roe went into shock during her saline abortion.

"Audrey" Roe went into cardiac arrest during her abortion, leaving four children without a mother.

"Barbara" Roe went into convulsions and died during a saline abortion, leaving five children motherless.

"Becky" Roe was sent home to Arkansas after her safe, legal abortion in New York -- even though she had a fever. She went septic and died.

"Beth" Roe traveled from Massachusetts to New York for her safe, legal abortion. But the saline meant to kill only the baby was injected into her bloodstream somehow and killed her as well.

"Mary" Roe bled to death slowly from an undiagnosed nick in her uterine artery after a safe, legal hospital abortion in California.

"Monica" Roe, a mother of five, died a horrifying death: Her abortion had caused a bowel obstruction that went undiagnosed, allowing stomach fluids to back up into her lungs and begin digesting them as she lay dying of sepsis.

"Roseanne" Roe had seizures and vomiting during her saline abortion, causing her to inhale vomit. This caused fatal pneumonia.

"Sandra" Roe wasn't told after her abortion that a pathology report showed that she had not actually been pregnant. Crushed by grief and remorse over her belief that she had killed a child, she took her own life.

"Tammy" Roe travelled from Ohio to New York for the safe, legal abortion that killed her.

"Vickie" Roe went septic and died after her abortion.

LaSandra Russ went into cardiac arrest and died almost immediately after her abortion in a California hospital.

Carole Schaner was allowed to bleed to death from multiple internal lacerations by erstwhile criminal abortionist Jesse Ketchum while he was out on bail pending trial for having done the same thing to Margaret Smith.

Margaret Smith travelled from Michigan to New York to have Ketchum do her abortion, because she'd been exposed to rubella and feared that her baby might have birth defects.

UPDATE: Anon asked what happened after 1971. The answer is: Nothing, really. The numbers continued in the same downward trend, with the only visible impact from legalization being a replacement of illegal deaths by legal deaths:



For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1996: NAF member's preferred treatment fatal for young mom

To put today's abortion death anniversary into perspective, a little background would be helpful.

In one session of a National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar, a participant indicated that when he pulled bowel (extracted part of a patient's bowel through a perforation in her uterus), his preferred method of treatment (if you can call it that) was to stuff the bowel back through the perforation, administer medications to make the uterus contract and control bleeding, monitor the woman more carefully in recovery, and if she seemed okay, send her home none the wiser.

The moderator was appalled. He pointed out that even if there was no obvious injury to the bowel, it might be bruised and damaged. The recommended procedure is to admit the patient to the hospital and examine her bowel, and observe her for signs of further injury. The moderator then asked how many of the other participants followed this method of stuffing the bowel back in and hoping for the best. Six participants raised their hands to be counted.



I knew it was only a matter of time before one of these bowel-stuffing abortionists killed somebody. That's where the unwitting Sharon Hamptlon stepped into the picture. Accompanied by her mother, Doris, and her three-year-old son, Curtis, she went to Bruce Steir (rhymes with fear) at A Lady's Choice Women's Medical Center for a safe, legal abortion on December 13, 1996. She was 20 weeks pregnant.

Steir remained at the facility for about an hour after Sharon's abortion. She was still in the recovery room when he left.

Excerpts from Doris's statement to the medical board can be found at ...And So I Could Hold You and You Could Go to Sleep. Here are some passages:

Maybe around 3:00 pm I took Curtis inside to use the bathroom. I saw a grey haired man dressed in green surgical clothes sitting at a desk. He said, "You know she is far along." I said, "No. I didn't know because she didn't tell me." Then I saw Sharon in the recovery room about 3:30 or 4:00 pm. She looked so bad that I felt scared. She was laying on a lazyboy style chair with an IV in her left arm and a blood pressure cuff on the other. She looked very pale. Her eyes were partially open and I could see only the whites of her eyes as if she were in shock. She was not speaking and her whole body was shaking real hard in big shivers. Her legs were especially bad. The doctor said, "She doesn't react to drugs well." .... A woman came in and said that Sharon didn't need the blankets that were on her already and pulled the blankets off. Other girls in the recovery room were vomiting and the attendant woman told the girls to keep vomiting, that vomiting was good for them at this time. I went back to the waiting room and a Spanish lady came out and said that Sharon would be ready in a few minutes as soon as the IV finished.

Sharon was in the recovery for only about 45 minutes, because at 5:00 pm they came out and said she was ready to leave. I heard someone say that the doctor was real busy and he had to rush out like he was going to the airport, something about him having to go to Sacramento or San Francisco. I saw two women struggling to place Sharon in a wheelchair. Sharon could not walk at all and she was not speaking. She looked very, very pale now.

This is reminiscent of the way Arnold Bickham told Sylvia Moore she was "lazy" when she was too weak from hemorrhage to walk. He, like Steir's staff did with Sharon, put the dying patient in a wheelchair and shoved her out the door. Other dying women pushed out of abortion facilities in wheelchairs because they were too weak to walk include Gracealynn Harris and Glenda Davis.

Doris, however, trusted the clinic staff and believed that if they discharged her daughter, then she must be well enough to safely leave.

On the way home to Barstow, I stopped at Wendy's to get a sandwich for little Curtis. I tried to wake Sharon but all she said was "Huh, Huh." Then Curtis said, "Mamma, I love you. Do you need anything? Are you okay?" And Sharon said, "Okay. I'll take a drink." Sharon was lying in the backseat of the car and said to Curtis, "Come on back with me Curtis. I love you and so I could hold you and you could go to sleep." She was silent for about one hour. Near Victorville, she said, "I'm so hot. Please let the window down." I opened the window a bit. After that, Sharon was silent forever.

We got home to Barstow and I saw that Sharon, still laying in the back seat was naked from the waist up, having removed her shirt, shoes and socks. I started yelling, "Sharon. Sharon. Wake up," but she didn't and my husband, Ben Hamptlon, said, "Call 911."

According to Nancy Myles, an untrasound technician who was assisting Steir during Sharon's abortion, Steir was having trouble locating and extracting the fetal skull. She said that he looked at her strangely and said, "I think I pulled bowel."

Steir was already on probation with the medical board at the time of Sharon's abortion; he had a history of botching abortions, including causing uterine perforations. He'd been found negligent in six abortion cases, including three in which the woman had to undergo a hysterectomy. One woman had to have a fetal skull removed from a tear in her uterus. Steir surrendered his licence in 1997, in the wake of the fallout surrounding Sharon's death.

Pro-choice organizations, including the national leadership of NOW, and the National Abortion Federation and the California Abortion and Reproduction Rights League, rallied around Steir. One supporter stood outside the courthouse with a sign reading, "Abortion doctors are heroes, defend Dr. Bruce Steir." The Feminist Women's Health Center in Chico, with whom he once was affiliated, set up a "defense committee" and raised funds for his legal expenses.

Joseph Durante, who owned the facility, was also on probation with the medical board at the time of Sharon's fatal abortion. He had attempted a late abortion which resulted in the birth of a live but injured infant.

Sharon was a single mother who worked part-time at Burger King while attending community college. Sharon's mother said that she wanted to go off welfare and become a nurse. California taxpayers ffunded the fatal abortion through Medi-Cal.

Steir eventually plea bargained. He was sentenced to a year in prison, with six months of the sentence suspended in leiu of community service. He was also given five years' probation. At the sentencing hearing, four years after Sharon's death, Sharon's father said he still often pulled his car to the side of the road, looked at his daughter's picture, and wept.

Steir was released after serving only four months of his sentence.

Again, from Doris Hamplton's statement:

I don't know how she heard about Dr. Durante's offices. I think he was recommended by the people at San Bernardino County Social Services or by Dr. Krider. Sharon was on Medi-Cal and had Pacific Care as the Medi-Cal managed care agent. I understand that because Dr. Durante and Dr. Steir were on probation they were not entitled to Medi-Cal payment, but they got it anyway. I understand that their office was not accredited as an ambulatory surgical office, and that it was supposed to be accredited to comply with the law. I had no idea that Dr. Durante and Dr. Steir were on probation with the Medical Board for incompetence and negligence against women patients. I am sure that Sharon did not know either. If I had known, I would never have taken Sharon to such a bad place with such bad doctors. I learned about their records in the newspaper articles.

....

I cry every day for the terrible loss of my daughter, and I am overwhelmed that 3 year old Curtis had his mother taken away forever. My husband, Ben Hamptlon, (father of Sharon), is sick with grief, has terrible head pain, is under the care of a doctor for this and has been taking strong pain medicine since Sharon's death. My prayer is that these doctors be stopped immediately so that no other girl will be killed and that no other family will have to suffer as we have.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1972

The Centers for Disease Control deigned to count the following abortion deaths in their most recent Abortion Surveillance Summary, for 2004:



Today I'll look at deaths in 1972. The CDC counts 65 -- 24 legal, 29 illegal, and 2 unknown.

Some of you may be thinking, "Wait a minute! Roe vs. Wade didn't legalize abortion until 1973! How can all those women be dying from legal abortions? The answer is that some states legalized abortions prior to Roe, particularly New York and California. California allowed abortion virtually on-demand, but only in hospitals. New York allowed abortion totally on-demand and not only in hospitals but in freestanding clinics and in doctors' offices.

As for the illegal abortions, they were probably performed by doctors as well, just in states that continued to frown on that sort of thing. Also, "illegal" deaths can be like Myrta Baptiste -- cases in which the woman thought the abortion was legal and safe, but after she died the CDC discovered that her doctor's license wasn't currently valid and so counted it as illegal. So any criminal abortionists who had lost their licenses in other states could have gone to New York and blended right in with the carpet-bagging criminal abortionists who hadn't lost their licenses.

I know of 16 abortion deaths in 1972, which means the CDC has at least 49 other deaths I don't know about:

Twila Coulter travelled from Colorado to California for the safe, legal abortion that took her life. Her saline abortion triggered clotting problems that caused a fatal brain bleed.

Gwendolyn Drummer was admitted to a California hospital for her abortion; saline got into her blood stream and killed her.

Natalie Meyers was brought to San Vicente Hospital in Los Angeles by her mother; she developed infection and went into shock.

"Christi Roe" underwent a saline abortion that allowed amniotic fluid to get into her bloodstream, causing fatal clotting problems.

"Cindy" Roe was undergoing a vacuum abortion when air got into her bloodstream, blocking the blood flow in her lungs and killing her.

"Colleen" Roe travelled from Michigan to New York for the safe, legal abortion that took her life. She went into respiratory arrest during the abortion.

"Connie" Roe went into cardiac arrest during her abortion. She left a young child motherless.

"Danielle" Roe travelled from Massachusetts to New York for her safe, legal abortion. Minutes after the abortion was killed she died from air and foreign matter in her bloodstream.

"Dawn" Roe suffered a fatal reaction to her abortion anesthesia.

"Julie" Roe was only 14 when she underwent her fatal abortion; her doctor had punched holes in her uterus and bowels.

"Nancy" Roe developed fatal clotting problems from a saline abortion.

"Robin" Roe travelled to New York from Massachusetts for the safe, legal abortion that killed her.

"Roxanne" Roe travelled to New York from Michigan for a safe, legal abortion. Her doctor overdosed her on anesthetic and she died before the abortion could even be performed.

"Sara" Roe died of an infection from retained tissue from her legal abortion.

"Wendy" Roe was injected with too much saline for her abortion. She went into convulsions and started bleeding uncontrollably due to an inability to get her blood to clot. She left two children motherless.

Kathryn Strong died a year to the day before Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision to allow all women to have access to similar abortions. Her uterus was punctured and she bled to death, leaving a young child without a mother.

For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post. Or you can place them in the context of other abortion deaths in the 1970s, and the years surrounding the 1970s:



For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

1930: Chicago woman dead from criminal abortion

On December 12, 1930, 22-year-old Jeanette Reder died of complications of a criminal abortion performed at the Chicago office of Dr. Emil Gleitsman on December 1. Gleitsman was indicted by a grand jury for homicide, but was acquitted on June 15, 1931. The source does not clarify why there was enough evidence to indict Gleitsman, but not enough to convict him.

Jeanette's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was attributed to a physician.



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

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1973

The Centers for Disease Control deigned to count the following abortion deaths in their most recent Abortion Surveillance Summary, for 2004:



Today I'll look at deaths in 1973. The CDC counts 47 -- 25 legal, 19 illegal, and 3 unknown. Remember that "illegal" deaths can be like Myrta Baptiste -- cases in which the woman thought the abortion was legal and safe, but after she died the CDC discovered that her doctor's license wasn't currently valid and so counted it as illegal.

I know of 8 abortion deaths in 1973, which means the CDC has at least 29 other deaths I don't know about:

Evelyn Dudley collapsed outside her home due to hemorrhage from an abortion performed at Friendship Medical Center -- the same facility that performed fatal abortion on at least 2 other women.

Kathy Murphy died from a septic abortion performed at the same abortion facility where at least four other women died.

Linda Padfield was sent home with most of her fetus still rotting inside her. She was one of two safe and legal abortion patients to die under the care of former criminal abortionist Benjamin Munson.

"Donna" Roe suffered a fatal embolism (foreign matter or air in the bloodstream) during a prostaglandin abortion.

"Dorothy" Roe likewise suffered a fatal embolism, leaving four children motherless.

"Eleanor" Roe suffered an embolism that caused a fatal clotting disorder.

"Vanessa" Roe also suffered a fatal embolism.

Julia Rogers, like Evelyn Dudley, died after an abortion at Friendship Medical Center.

For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post. Or you can place them in the context of other abortion deaths in the 1970s, and the years surrounding the 1970s:



For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion and childbirth

I had the pleasure of dealing with a troll today who freely posted, in response to numerous blog posts, all about the lamentatious childbirth deaths that supposedly make abortion so worthwhile. This is a point that needs to be addressed.

Let's address the real issues:

1. Women don't have abortions to save their lives from childbirth deaths. I wrote a post about this. The main points are that there is no maternal condition for which the standard (or even a recommended) treatment is abortion; most childbirth deaths are due to problems that abortion would not resolve safely.

2. We don't know how many women die from abortions. Therefore any attempt to compare abortion risks to childbirth risks is based on assumptions, not science. The data collection for abortion mortality is so slipshod, one might as well stick a box in the middle of an orchard, count all the apples that fall into it, and assume that one has successfully counted all the apples that fell in the entire orchard. And if you don't know what X actually is (the risk of death from abortion), then you can't compare X to Y or Z or anything else.

3. Even if it turned out that abortion was actually less risky than carrying to term, it would be irrelevant. Flying is safer than driving, but that doesn't mean that we don't take steps to prevent fatal airline crashes. Likewise, whatever the comparative risks of abortion versus childbirth, promoting abortion will not make childbirth safer. Yes, do whatever we can to reduce maternal mortality (Which we have done pretty successfully in the West). But remember that while these steps will also reduce abortion deaths, abortion will not reduce maternal mortality

ADDED:

4. Chanting "Safe and legal!" does nothing to prevent deaths from either abortion or from childbirth. It's just a variation on this:



The only people impressed by it are other people who have nothing more substantial to add than other bumper-sticker slogans.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortion deaths in 1974

The Centers for Disease Control deigned to count the following abortion deaths in their most recent Abortion Surveillance Summary, for 2004: