October 5: Lack of Technology Leads to Death

On October 5, 1911, 38-year-old homemaker May Bambrick died from an ectopic pregnancy, evidently after an abortion perpetrated that day by midwife Emma Schultz. Schultz was held by the Coroner's Jury and indicted on October 12, but the case never went to trial. Since at the time there were no easy means to detect ectopic pregnancy, May's death can not really be attributed to either Schultz or the abortion.

In the post-Roe era, however, access to ultrasound and serial HCG testing (checking how pregnancy hormones are changing over time), there really is no excuse for an abortion doctor failing to determine an ectopic pregnancy. Still, they fail to diagnose ectopic pregnancies and women thus attribute symptoms of a pending rupture to post-abortion pain and don't seek prompt care, leading to their deaths.

Watch Lack of Technology Leaves Woman Dead on YouTube.