Five Deaths: 1878 - 1983

Of the five women from the Cemetery of Choice whose deaths took place on this date, only one had an abortion perpetrated by somebody other than a physician. 

Ann E. Roberts, 25 years old, submitted to an abortion November 29, 1878 in Saint Louis, Missouri. She died of peritonitis on December 3. She was attended to by William Stapp and Stephen L. Metcalf, neither of whom was a doctor. Before her death, Ann identified Stapp as her abortionist. Metcalf was arrested as an accessory.

Grace Wolf, a young married woman, traveled from her home in Lansing, Iowa to the office of Dr. C. Allen Snyder (pictured) in Dubuque on November 19, 1917. Shortly after leaving Snyder's practice, she took ill. By November 29 she was in the hospital, and her condition deteriorated until her death on December 3. The autopsy had found evidence of recent pregnancy and a puncture in Grace's uterus. Dr. Snyder was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to ten years at hard labor. His conviction was overturned on appeal. He was also charged with murder in the 1918 abortion death of Mrs. Frank Gagne of East Dubuque, Illinois. 

On December 2, 1977, 29-year-old Jacqueline Bailey was injected with saline by Dr. Eboreime (Possibly Babatunde Eboreime. I am trying to verify this.) for an instillation abortion at Pacific Glen Hospital in Los Angeles County. This kind of abortion worked because the baby would swallow and inhale the extremely salty fluid which would cause massive internal hemorrhage and fatal organ damage. Five hours after Jackie expelled the dead baby, her condition appeared grave. Shortly after midnight, she was transferred to Memorial Hospital of Glendale. Doctors at Memorial suspected a uterine laceration, so they performed exploratory surgery. The bleeding was so profuse that they then performed a hysterectomy in a last-ditch attempt to save her life. Jackie died just before sunrise on December 3. The autopsy report found that Jackie's uterus had ruptured during the abortion, and that her uterine artery had been lacerated. She had bled to death from her injuries. Two years earlier, Cheryl Tubbs also bled to death from a ruptured uterus caused by a saline abortion at Pacific Glen.

Cora Lewis is one of six abortion deaths currently attributed to Inglewood Women's Hospital (aka Inglewood Women's Clinic) in Los Angeles County. Twenty-three-year-old Cora had her safe and legal abortion at Inglewood on November 4, 1983. She had gonorrhea at the time of the abortion, which led to inflammation of the cervix and uterus. Cora developed fever and chills after her abortion, and was finally admitted to a hospital on November 11. She was aggressively treated for pneumonia, including surgery, but died December 3. The coroner attributed her death to pneumonia and lung abscess contributed to by the uterine and cervical inflammation. Other abortion deaths at Inglewood include Kathy Murphy (September, 1973), Lynette Wallace (September, 1975), Elizabeth Tsuji (February, 1978), Yvonne Tanner (August, 1984), and Belinda Byrd (January, 1987),

Andre Nehorayoff

Dr. Andre Nehorayoff performed a safe and legal abortion on "Ellen" on November 29, 1983. She was 18 years old and in the second trimester of pregnancy. After the abortion, Nehorayoff discharged Ellen from his facility. He had not removed or identified all fetal parts. Nehorayoff entered the following note in Ellen's chart: "Pt. is advised that she might pass some tissue, contact me at any time or if she bleeds heavily." He was clearly aware that he'd preformed an incomplete abortion. At 5:10 AM on December 3, Ellen was rushed to an emergency room. She was already in a coma upon admission. An hour and 10 minutes later, she was pronounced dead. At autopsy there was a portion of the fetal left leg protruding from the uterus, and the cause of death was determined to be from hemorrhaging due to the incomplete abortion. Nehorayoff was also disciplined regarding Patient F, whom he left unattended in a recovery room following her abortion on December 15, 1979, without any monitoring. She turned blue and no pulse could be detected. She was pronounced dead at a hospital.