Four deaths. Are only two tragic?

Twenty-five-year-old Lizzie Cook, a farmer's daughter, died suddenly on July 27, 1884, in Lockport, New York. The newspaper noted that "the secrecy in getting her body removed to her home created suspicion." Lizzie's body was exhumed for an examination, which showed that she had died from an abortion. Dr. Ira T. Richmond was arrested. Richmond had come to Lockport a year earlier and opened a sanitarium, "which died for want of patronage." Evidently, just has has been the pattern after legalization, being a failure as a regular doctor has long been a factor in the decision to become an abortionist.

On July 27, 1920, 38-year-old Adelaide Fowler died at her Chicago home after a criminal abortion. Dr. Barney Welty was arrested, and indicted by a Grand Jury on August 1, but the case never went to trial.

Eighteen-year-old Yvonne Mesteth was in the second trimester of her pregnancy when she went to Dr. Benjamin Munson's Rapid City practice for an abortion. Yvonne developed an infection, then went into kidney failure and adult respiratory distress syndrome, which killed her on July 27, 1985. Despite having already killed Linda Padfield, Munson had been welcomed into the National Abortion Federation. He is also the third former criminal abortionist I've learned of who had a clean record -- no patient deaths -- as a criminal abortionist, only to go on to kill two patients in his legal practice. The others are Milan Vuitch (Georgianna English and Wilma Harris) and Jesse Ketchum (Margaret Smith and Carole Schaner).

Thirty-two-year-old Mary Ann Dancy was a mother of five when she went to Fleming Center in North Raleigh, North Carolina for a safe and legal abortion on July 27, 1990. The abortion was performed by Clarence J. Washington. He documented no complications. After Mary Ann went home, she bled heavily, and the next day, July 28, she was taken to Halifax Memorial Hospital. She died that night during emergency surgery from hemorrhage due to a lacerated cervix.

I would ask abortion supporters why the deaths of Lizzie and Adelaide were unacceptable tragedies that we needed to totally revamp society to prevent the likes of, whereas the deaths of Yvonne and Mary Ann can be shrugged off as, "Well, all surgery has risks."