Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Two anniversaries: Criminal and legal abortion

On June 22, 1928, 31-year-old Rose Hannover died at the office of Dr. Lester I. Ofner from complications of an abortion performed there that day. Ofner was held by the coroner on July 28. On November 28, he was acquitted. The source documents do not indicate why, so we have no way of knowing if he was wrongly identified by the coroner, if the prosecution screwed up, or if the way the law was written made getting a conviction difficult.

On June 22, 1996, 22-year-old Kelly Morse died in a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania hospital from complications of anesthesia administered during an abortion performed June 19 by Dr. Dr. Delhi Elmore Thweatt, Jr. at Hillcrest Women's Medical Center. Staff had administered a drug to Kelly that she had warned them she was allergic to. She immediately went into respiratory distress, which her inhaler did nothing to alleviate. Thweatt continued with the abortion, completing it in about four minutes, and spent some time providing ineffectual care to Kelly before having an ambulance summoned. Click on Kelly's name to read the whole story.

6 comments:

kong said...

Rose Hannover is my great aunt. I am trying to find more information about her medical records and trial. Could you help direct me on where to go?

Christina Dunigan said...

You can ask for a copy of the coroner's inquest from the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. The phone number is (312) 666-0500/0200. The last person I helped ended up having to pay nearly $380 for a copy of the inquest but it might be cheaper if you can go in person and photocopy it. Good luck!

Christina Dunigan said...

You might also try calling the criminal courts office to see if it's possible to get trial documents:
(773) 674-3147
(773) 674-3140

kong said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
kong said...

thank you so much!!

Christina Dunigan said...

Keep my posted on how it goes. If you want to move the conversation to a more private venue you can use my email: cdunigan@hotmail.com