Wednesday, December 31, 2008

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:



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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

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

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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

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Monday, December 29, 2008

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:



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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:



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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:



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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:



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Saturday, December 27, 2008

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:



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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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

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  • 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:



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    Friday, December 26, 2008

    A difficult choice

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



    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.
  • Thursday, December 25, 2008

    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

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    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?

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    Wednesday, December 24, 2008

    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.