Two Each, Illegal and Legal; All Equally Dead

On January 26, 1920, 24-year-old Lydia Swanson died at Chicago's Post Graduate Hospital from an abortion perpetrated by Dr. Rosa Gollnick. Lydia had developed septic inflammation of both lungs. Gollnick was arrested on January 27 and went to trial, but was acquitted on June 18.

Lois Brown was tried in the Superior Court of Santa Barbara County of second degree murder and abortion in the 1956 death of 27-year-old Lucia "Lucy" Sanchez. When Lucy was three or four months pregnant, a go-between introduced her to Brown, and together with her also-pregnant roommate, Clara, went to her for an abortion. Brown did Clara's abortion first, after which Clara suffered complications and had to seek aftercare with a doctor. Lucy, meanwhile, gathered funds to pay for her own abortion, which left her hemorrhaging and in great pain. Brown took Lucy, accompanied by Clara and Lucy's mother, to a hospital. Upon being told that Lucy was dead, Brown gave the abortion fee to Lucy's mother for funeral expenses and pondered whether to come clean about her involvement. The jury found Brown guilty of two abortions -- Lucy's and Clara's -- and of murder in Lucy's death.

Ingar Weber, age 28, died January 26, 1990, in a Louisiana hospital. She had been treated for acute kidney failure after a safe and legal abortion performed at Delta Women's Clinic in Baton Rouge on January 20, 1990. Ingar's family sued the clinic and its doctors, Richardson P. Glidden and Thomas Booker, faulting them with failing to diagnose Ingar's kidney problems, or her deteriorating physical condition, before, during, or after the abortion. Delta had also been sued following the death of another abortion patient. This woman was most likely 27-year-old Sheila Hebert, who died after an abortion on June 6, 1984.

On January 22, 2001, 19-year-old Melissa Heim went to Access Health Center in Downers Grove, Illinois.She was given "twilight anesthesia" with a drug cocktail for a safe, legal abortion. After the abortion, she was moved to the recovery area, where she went into cardio-respiratory arrest about half an hour later. An ambulance was summoned, and Melissa was resuscitated by the paramedics, but due to the brain injury she had suffered, she died on January 26.