April 12, 1989: Lena's Baby Born

 "Lena" had an abortion performed February 28, 1989 by John Roe 57, at what she had been told was two weeks into her pregnancy, which is odd since at that time pregnancy tests could not detect a pregnancy that early -- when the embryo had only just implanted. When Lena returned for her follow-up visit, staff told her that the abortion had been successful. On April 12, Lena went to the hospital due to severe abdominal pain. Doctors told her that she was five months pregnant. She gave birth to a baby boy on July 10. Sadly, the child died two days later due to respiratory problems caused by the abortion attempt. (Ector County Texas District Court Case No. C-88-212)

April 9, 1935: Newlywed Joins Ranks of Dr. Brewer's Dead

Dr. Guy E. Brewer

On June 7, 1935, Dr. Guy E. Brewer pleaded guilty to six counts of manslaughter for the deaths of six women who died from complications of abortions he had perpetrated. He was sentenced to serve six consecutive four-year terms. He spent his incarceration working in the prison hospital. 

One of those young women was Wanda Lee Gray, age 20, who died April 9, 1935 at the home of her parents, Lewis and Effie May Wickline, in Enid, Oklahoma. She left behind her husband, Robert George Gray, two brothers, and two sisters. She was a 1933 graduate of Enid High School. She and Robert were newlyweds, having only married the 30th of the previous July. They had honeymooned in Chicago to visit the World's Fair, traveled in Michigan and Minnesota, then returned to set up house on a farm southwest of Kremlin, Oklahoma.

Wanda wasn't the first death attributed to Brewer's abortion activities. The first was of 21-year-old Myrtle Helen Rose, of Ponca City, Oklahoma, who died on December 23, 1931. Ruby Ford,  a 26-year-old homemaker, died April 1, 1934 after an abortion perpetrated by Brewer. Hermoine Fowler, a 20-year-old coed, died June 27, 1934. 

Wanda had not even been buried yet when an abortion at Brewer's hands ended the life of Doris Jones, a 20-year-old mother of two, who died April 11, 1935. Elizabeth Shaw, 23, of Roxanna also died in 1935. I have yet to determine if Elizabeth died before or after Wanda.

Brewer had graduated from the University of Louisville in 1906 and had been practicing medicine in Garber for 21 of the 29 years he had been a physician. He supported young men during their university studies, maintaining houses for them to live in. Those he had educated over the years rushed immediately to his defense. Though Brewer had spent many long years helping boys and young men, his impact on women's lives was evidently lightning-fast.

Brewer pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter on each case, ostensibly to avoid putting those who cared about him through the embarrassment of a public trial on such distasteful charges. One particular statement by Brewer is very telling:

"I could not stand to have my boys brought into this case and I would not betray the trust so many people have placed in me by having them harassed, and in some instances their lives ruined by the notoriety a trial would bring to them."

This implies that a lot of those abortions were done at the behest of Brewer's "boys," who would themselves face serious charges for arranging the fatal abortions on women they had impregnated. 

Those "boys" offered support to Brewer from all corners of the globe, where they had work they attributed to Brewer's support in getting their educations.

The county attorney who arranged the plea, Holbird, didn't seem to think that Brewer had done much harm. "In accepting Dr. Brewer's plea of guilty in these abortion deaths I do so with the feeling that the law has collected its debt. The matter of the penalty assessed is unimportant. The thing that counts is that these crimes have been exposed to the world, and the people can now realize the serious danger and hazard to life in this kind of operation." 

Thus came Brewer's  six four-year sentences, to run concurrently, for all six abortion deaths. The likely reason that he got such a light sentence was his extreme popularity for his benevolence in putting local young men through college. So beloved was Brewer that one victim's husband was fired in retaliation for reporting his wife's death to the police.

Governor E. W. Marland, however, was not exactly delighted with the wrist-slap administered by local officials. "This is the worst case I ever heard of," the governor said, "He was, in my opinion, guilty of mortal turpitude of character almost as serious as that resulting in the death of these women." Noting that Brewer would be eligible for parole after serving only 28 months, the governor urged an investigation which he was certain would uncover more crimes so that additional charges could be brought so that Brewer would end up serving a sentence commensurate with the harm he had done. 

In the end, Brewer's supporters triumphed. The young men prospered, the young women lay dead in their graves.

Watch One of Six Victims on YouTube.

Source:

• "Wickline-Gray Vows Monday," Enid (OK) Morning News, July 31, 1934
• "Graduate of Enid High School Dies," Enid (OK) Daily Eagle, April 10, 1935
• "Murder Charges Multiply On Philanthropic Doctor," Miami (OK) Daily News-Record, May 5, 1935
• "Fourth Murder Charge Filed Against Physician," Muskogee )OK) Daily Phoenix, May 10, 1945
• "Two More Murder Charges Are Filed Against Physician," Bristow (OK) Daily Record, June 6, 1935
• "Two New Deaths Laid to Garber's 'Sweet Grouch'," Muskogee Times-Democrat, June 6, 1935
• "Link Doctor in 2 New Deaths," Oklahoma News, June 6, 1935
• "Dr. Brewer Accused of Death of Logan Woman," (Guthrie, OK) Leader, June 7, 1935
• "Dr. Brewer Calm To New Charges," Miami (OK) News-Record, June 7, 1935
• "Dr. Brewer Gets Four Years on Plea of Guilty," Okmulgee (OK) Daily Times, June 8, 1935
• "Garber Doctor Given Four Year Sentence For Abortion Deaths," Muskogee Daily Phoenix, June 8, 1035
• "Marland Hints More Charges Against Doctor," The Oklahoma News, June 9, 1935
• "Mild-Mannered County Doctor Pleads Guilty To Six Charges of Manslaughter and Gets 4 Years," Nowata (OK) Daily Star, June 9, 1935

April 7, 1896: A Cry in the Night

 On the evening of Monday, April 6, 1896, Tillie Karcher heard moaning in the flat of seamstress Millie Meyers, just upstairs of her at 415 Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn. She listened again and heard a young female voice crying out, "Oh, let me go home to my mama!"

Alarmed, Mrs. Karchner sought out a policeman on his rounds, who went to the apartment and found a young woman there, ailing and alone. The girl gave her name as Mrs. Emily Scott and said that her husband, Ollie Scott, was a fireman on a Fulton ferry.

The policeman found prescription bottles in the room, so he copied the information from them and went to the pharmacy that had prepared them. The pharmacist said that the medicines were common ones used in treating fevers.

The policeman considered all these goings-on to be fishy, so he reported the situation to the precinct captain, who began an investigation to identify and round up everybody involved in the young woman's suspicious illness.

Around 5:30 on Tuesday afternoon, April 7, the young woman said that she was going to die soon, told the police that her real name was Emily Binney and gave them her address on Rutledge Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Emily's turn for the worse sent the police rushing for the coroner, leaving the ailing girl in the care of Minnie Meyer. The coroner arrived to find that Miss Meyer had abandoned Emily, leaving her to die alone in the intervening half hour.

Meyer was eventually apprehended and admitted that she'd helped 20-year-old Emily to seek out the abortion services of 33-year-old midwife Mary Schott and had herself been engaged to look after the patient.

A police officer went to the Fulton ferry house and managed to identify "Ollie Scott" as Arthur Robbins, who was arrested when he showed up at Meyer's flat to look for Emily at 10:00 that evening.

While the suspects were being questioned, Minnie said that Emily's baby had been born alive on March 21. Upon hearing that, Robbins burst into tears and told police that about four hours after the child's birth he had wrapped the baby in newspapers weighted down with a piece of iron and thrown it out a porthole in the ferry. He couldn't say if the baby had still been alive when it was tossed into the river.

Arthur Robbins then admitted that he had gone with Emily and Minnie to arrange for Mrs. Schott to perform an abortion.

Minnie Meyer was found guilty of manslaughter. I've been unable to determine the outcome of the case against the midwife.

Watch A Cry in the Night on YouTube.

Sources:

• “Criminal Malpractice,” undated clipping from North Towanda Evening News
• “Criminal Malpractice,” Courtland Standard, Apr.9, 1896
• “Four Arrests,” Bay City Times, Apr. 8, 1896
• “Four Under Arrest,” The New York Herald, Apr. 9, 1896
• "Caused a Rich Girl's Death," Salem (OHO Daily News, April 9, 1896
• “Mrs. Meyer Found Guilty,” New York Herald Tribune, Oct. 16, 1896
• “Died Among Strangers,” New York Herald, Apr. 8, 1896
• “A School Girl’s Fate,” York (PA) Semi-Weekly Gazette, Apr. 11, 1896
• “Robbins Goes Free,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov. 27, 1896

April 7, 1940: Self-Induced in Wyoming

According to her death certificate, Inez Stella Smead Harpham, wife of George Harphan, lived in Rowlins, Carbon County, Wyoming and worked as a housekeeper. The daughter of Marion and Nancy Driscal Smead, she was born in Lyons, Colorado in 1906.

On April 4, 1940 she was admitted to Carbon County Memorial Hospital. She was treated there by Dr. Myron L. Crandall until her death shortly after midnight the morning of April 7.

Her death was attributed to self-induced abortion with infection. She had been about 6 weeks pregnant. 

April 6, 1906: Malpractice Prompts Midwife's Suicide Attempt

 SUMMARY: On April 6, 1906, 22-year-old homemaker Bessie Braun died in Chicago from an abortion perpetrated by midwife Julia Gibson.

Michael Reese Hospital

The Wards at Michael Reese Hospital

Were there really wards full of women dying from botched septic abortions in the days before legalization? Dr. Julius Lackner of Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago reflected on what he saw there from 1900 to 1914. Five hundred women were treated at this charity hospital for septic abortions — both criminal abortions and miscarriages — during those fifteen years. Of those 500 women, there were only four deaths.

I have verified that two of them were indeed criminal abortion patients: Lizzie Orenstein and Bessie Braun.

Bessie's Death

Bessie, a 22-year-old homemaker, mother of two, and immigrant from Austria, died at Michael Reese on April 6, 1906. Both verbally and in writing, Bessie named midwife Julia Gibson as the person who had perpetrated the abortion, for a $5 fee, on March 20. It was hardly surprising that Bessie’s abortion had been perpetrated by somebody with medical training, since the majority of Chicago abortions in that era were done by either doctors or midwives, who ran thinly veiled advertisements in the newspapers.

Bessie’s husband, Abraham, testified at the inquest. He said that he had not known anything about an abortion until Bessie became seriously ill on Sunday, though she remained at home until Thursday, when she finally was hospitalized.

He also said that prior to her death, Bessie told him that she had written the guilty midwife’s name and address on a piece of paper which was in the bed at their home. Abraham found the paper and turned it over to authorities during the inquest.

Attempted Suicide

Gibson, who had been at Bessie’s bedside during the declaration, was being escorted out of the hospital by police when she asked to go to the women’s dressing room in the hospital basement. She was permitted to go in while a police officer stood guard outside the door.

The officer soon heard a shot, then forced the door and found Gibson lying on the floor suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. She was admitted to the hospital for treatment and was kept both under arrest and under suicide watch. As she lay near death, Gibson confessed her guilt. She later recovered.

Not Her First Dead Patient

Gibson had previously been indicted for the November, 1905 abortion death of 18-year-old Dorothy Spuhr, who had died at County Hospital.

Watch Midwife Attempts Suicide, Admits Guilt on YouTube.

Sources:

• Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database
• Death certificate
• “Seeks Death to Escape the Law,” Chicago Tribune, Apr. 7, 1906
• “Midwife is Held; Murder Charged,” Chicago Tribune, Apr. 8, 1906
• “Wife Dead; Midwife Dying,” Chicago Inter Ocean, Apr. 8, 1906
• “Attempt at Suicide Fails,” Chicago Inter-Ocean, Apr. 9, 1906

Happy Birthday, Gianna Jessen!

Gianna Jessen

April 5, 2001: Haley's Post-Abortion Journey Ends Tragically

Dear Lord,

I sit here alone with my thoughts wondering if you will ever forgive me. Why do I continue to fail you? I'm failing you because I‘m turning away from the precious gift of having a child. A child. A breathing, living, beautiful life that I created but too selfish to accept from you. Will you still love me as a child of yours? Will I still love me after today?

Haley‘s journal - Oct. 23, 2000

On April 5, 2001, Donetta Robben‘s 22-year-old niece didn't show up for work. Her friend Rosa drove over to check on her, and her car wasn't there. Rosa called the girl‘s father, Edwin. Had she gone home to visit her family?

Edwin later said he just knew that his daughter was dead. He called the Omaha police, and he called his daughter's landlord. They went to the apartment. They found her body.

Though the coroner estimated that the young woman had been dead for several days, all official documents, and the young woman‘s tombstone, use the April 5th date. So will I.

In telling her niece's story, Donetta decided to use the name ‘Haley Mason‘ rather than her niece‘s real name. In respect for the family‘s desire to grieve privately, I‘m using the name Donetta uses. Likewise, I use the pseudonyms Donetta uses for friends and family members.

The official ruling was that Haley‘s death was an accidental overdose. Her family was stunned as the investigators spoke with them, revealing the discoveries made while looking into the young woman‘s death. Isolated words echoed in their minds: death, journals, death, pills, death, drinking, death, hurt, death, abortion...

Abortion?

Abortion.

The answers to how Haley went from happy-go-lucky college student to suicide statistic weren't in the official reports. They were found in Haley‘s journals, where she poured her heart out in the final months of her life.

The story of how Haley died begins when she fell in love with Todd. She found out she was pregnant and told him. He wanted her to get an abortion.

LeRoy Carhart's clinic in Belleview, Nebraska

Haley was a student at the University of Nebraska. She worked two jobs to meet her expenses. Unmarried, without much money, and with a disapproving boyfriend, Haley saw abortion as her only option. She made her appointment at the Bellevue, Nebraska practice of  Dr. Leroy Carhart. It was late October of 2000.

Haley wrote of Todd‘s attitude: "I must let him abandon me. He doesn't care about me. I know he‘s only agreed to pay for it to ease his own guilt."

Haley found the abortion stressful: the wait, the sounds, the crude and uncaring behavior of the doctor. Haley had been told to arrive at the clinic at 7:00 in the morning, but it was ten hours before she was finally on the table, ready for the abortion. Carhart walked into the room, clad in a dirty coat and glasses so smeared that Haley‘s friend, who had accompanied her, wondered how he could even see through the lenses.

Haley, in her fog of medication, tried to make a joke. "Don‘t hurt me down there?" she said. 

"Be still and I won‘t," Carhart replied.

While performing the vacuum abortion, Carhart spouted profanities. He told Haley and her friend that he was tired. He‘d been speaking in California the day before, and had just flown into Omaha that morning.

After the abortion, Haley felt violated, as if she‘d been raped. She also experienced continued spotting into January. She'd not been given a follow-up appointment, and didn't know if the bleeding was normal or not. She didn't want to go to another doctor, because she‘d have to tell him about the abortion, and that was just too painful to talk about. The bleeding was a constant reminder of the death of her unborn baby.

Haley told few people about the abortion: three close friends and two relatives. But she didn't tell them of her struggle to cope with the emotional pain. She kept telling herself that she‘d done the best thing. But she started punishing herself, and pushed away anybody who tried to love her. She didn't feel that she deserved their love.

Haley longed for a knight in shining armor to rescue her from the prison of her grief, but she no longer felt comfortable with men. She had to get drunk to be able to endure sex. And even then, it reminded her of the abortion. Todd came by at early hours, looking for sex. Haley submitted, but her heart wasn't in it. She no longer felt loved. She felt used.

The drinking got worse. Hot baths and quick jogs provided temporary relief from the anguish, but it always returned.

Finally, Haley could stand it no more.

First, she drank plenty of numbing alcohol. Then, she went into her living room and grabbed a precious photo of her late mother and maternal grandfather. Next, a bottle of vodka. A bottle of aspirin. An old prescription bottle of Benadryl. Haley washed the drugs down with the vodka, leaving the three bottles next to the photograph.

She went into the bedroom. She put her rosary around her neck. She set an empty holy water bottle on her dresser. She opened her journal to the day of the abortion. She lay down, head on her pillow, looking for the  rest she couldn't find any more in living, leaving her family to sort out their own pain. 

Other post-abortion suicides include:

• Carol Cunningham, age 21, who shut herself in her garage, ran her car, and died from the exhaust fumes in August of 1986
• Arlin della Cruz, age 19, who hanged herself in the woods near her house in October of 1992
• Laura Grunas, age 30, who shot her baby’s father and then herself in August of 2006
• “Sandra Roe,” age 18, who killed herself using an unidentified means in April of 1971
• Sandra Kaiser, age 15, who threw herself off an overpass into traffic in November of 1984
• Stacy Zallie, age 20, who committed suicide in October of 2002

Watch Haley's Journey From Abortion to Suicide on YouTube.

April 4, 1985: First of Two Deaths at Hands of Gambling Addicted Doctor

Mary Bradley, an Alabama resident, was 41 and a mother of four when she underwent a 20-week abortion at the hands of Dr. George Wayne Patterson in March of 1985.

Soon after, Mary was losing blood. She was admitted to the University of South Alabama Medical Center in Mobile and her bleeding was described as “abnormal” and “uncontrollable”. Doctors performed a hysterectomy on March 28, 1985 in an attempt to save Mary, but she had developed a blood clotting disorder and respiratory problems as a result of the abortion. She died on April 4, 1985.

Like a disproportionate number of women who die in safe and legal abortions, Mary was black.

Less than a year after he killed Mary and her baby, Patterson perpetrated a fatal abortion on Janyth Caldwell.

George Wayne Patterson

Patterson was shot to death in 1993 near his car outside of an X-rated movie theater. At first, abortion-rights groups treated Patterson's death as martyrdom for one who provided "vital reproductive health care." They never mentioned the two dead women. Police confirmed later that the killer, Winston McCoy, was a violent felon who was on parole after serving time for a violent home robbery and sexual assault. Patterson's killing had been a botched robbery attempt. News coverage revealed that Patterson was a rather unsavory character who had accumulated tens of thousands of dollars in debts to illegal bookies. His name gradually vanished from the Rolls of the Holy Martyrs among the prochoice.

Watch Deadly Doc Dies Deplorably on YouTube.

Sources:

• Alabama Certificate of Death # 85-10613
• Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences Autopsy Report # 27(A)-85-31536
• Circuit Court for Monroe County, Alabama Case, CV-85-54

April 3, 1935: The Second of Dr. Justin Mitchell's Known Deaths

Dr. Justin Mitchell

On February 12, 1936, Dr. Justin Mitchell, age 57, of Chicago was convicted of manslaughter in the April 3, 1935 abortion death of 32-year-old Mary Nowalowski.  Eleven days before his conviction, another of Mitchell's patients, Alice Haggin, died from abortion complications. Two years earlier, Mitchell had been implicated in the abortion death of Mary Schwartz.

According to death records, Mary was an assembler at a Western Electric factory.

The prime witness in Mary's case was milk wagon driver Stephen Zakes. He and Mary were planning a wedding for the upcoming May.  On March 27, Stephen brought Mary to the Chicago office of Dr. Victor J. Neale. He then met with the couple together, telling them that Mary was between two and two and a half months pregnant. Mary began to cry and ask Neale, "What will I do?"

Stephen testified that Neale had referred them to Dr. Justin Mitchell; Neale insisted that he had simply told them they could go to some busy corner and find an abortionist.

Stephen and Mary went to Mitchell's office on the evening of Friday, March 29. Mitchell examined Mary and confirmed that she was pregnant. She was at least eight weeks along, Mitchell said, and if she returned the following morning at 8:00 he would perform an abortion. The fee would be $50. He assured them that there was no danger for Mary to undergo the procedure.

Stephen Zakes went to Mitchell's office at around 11:00 the morning of Saturday, March 30 to see how Mary was doing after the abortion. "She will be all right, she is in a little pain right now." Stephen went to see Mary himself and found her to be in excruciating pain, unable to even sit up. Mitchell insisted to him, "They are all weak after an operation of that kind."

Stephen escorted Mary home. She was weak and chilly. They stopped at a drug store for coffee and toast, then walked to a cab stand where Mary became violently ill. After Stephen took Mary home, she immediately took to her bed. Dr. Neale was summoned to examine her. Neale provided morphine for Mary's pain before leaving. Stephen remained with her until about 1:00 in the morning on Sunday, March 31.

Somebody brought Dr. G. M. Redman to Mary's home between 4:00 and 5:00 that morning. He found Mary in such grave shape that he immediately took her to his car and drove her to the hospital.

Mary was given medicine to contract her uterus but she continued to bleed so Redman contacted the coroner's office then performed a curretage of Mary's uterus. Her cervix had already been damaged, showing tearing and pus. During the curretage, Redman retrieved the head of Mary's fetus along with retained portions of the placenta.

Redman's care notwithstanding, Mary died on Wednesday, April 3. A postmortem examination concluded that Mary's uterus had developed gangrene due to the abortion, and that she had died of hemorrhage and septic shock.

Watch Abortion Doctor's Second Dead Patient on YouTube.

Sources: 

• People v. Mitchell, Supreme Court of Illinois, 368Ill.399 (Ill. 1938)
• “Vote to Indict Physician in 2d Abortion Death,” Chicago Tribune, March 11, 1936

April 2: The Birth and Death of Baby Rowan

Rowan was not as fortunate as the fictitious Hannah, or the real-life Gianna Jessen and Ana Rosa Rodriguez. Clinic workers ignored his mother's pleas for help for her baby.

The mother, who is using the name "Angele" when dealing with this situation, was in a very stressful situation that I'm not at liberty to discuss. She sought "Christian" counseling, and ended up, sadly, with a counselor who informed her that the best way to deal with the the stresses of the situation and the pregnancy would be to seek an abortion. With a heavy heart, Angele finally did so.

Angele could have had an abortion in or near her home state, but those facilities used the D&E dismemberment technique that uses forceps to dismember the baby while he is still alive. Though the counselor had convinced Angele that it was necessary for her baby to die before birth, Angele couldn't bear to think of him being torn limb from limb. She found out about the EPOC clinic of Orlando Women's Center. There, they used a method similar to the way animals are put down. A chemical is injected into the baby's heart to cause a quick death. The woman then goes into labor and delivers her dead baby. This method struck Angele as much less terrible than the dismemberment abortion. So off to Florida she went.

Angele even asked the "counselor" at the clinic again about the injection. She wanted to make sure that it was a quick injection that would stop the baby's heart right away, and not the saline injection that she knew caused a long, slow, agonizing death.

But for some reason, the staff at EPOC put the laminaria into Angele's cervix to dilate it for labor, but they didn't inject the digoxin into Rowan's heart. Angele was concerned that she still felt the baby moving after leaving the facility on Day 1. But she told herself that she must have just misunderstood how this worked. She took the labor-inducing drugs as instructed, and early the next morning she was in labor.

She arrived at the facility at 9 a.m., before it opened, and knocked and knocked at the door. About fifteen minutes later, somebody let her in.

I was directed to "the room." I had been there for a moment the day before and thought it to be a waiting room for family or driving companions. It had a leather sofa and a fabric sofa, both with a white blanket stretched across the seat cushions, a small television and a few magazines.

However, noted Angele, "It was not a waiting area; it was the 'delivery room.' It was, of course, very cold." She was given a wet blanket and a heating pad and told that the doctor wouldn't be there until 2 p.m.

Angele's contractions became strong and frequent, and she was in a lot of pain. But the staff member told Angele that medication would just slow her labor. Violene, the clinic staffer, left the room, and Angele started to bleed.

I came back to the sofa, (they both really smelled awful), wrapped up in the wet and sour-smelling blanket, then decided it was better without it. I rocked back and forth on my hands and knees, trying to hold the heating pad to my stomach to both relieve the pain and try to stay warm. I was looking down and saw little smears and spots of dried blood on the floor and an old cotton ball with blood on it by the fabric-covered sofa across from me. Noticing how dirty it was and how no one was in the room or even nearby in the hallway began to make me nervous and uncomfortable. I went right back to the powder room and began to try to push a lot. I thought it might help since I was told I was not nearly ready to deliver.

In one agonizing push, I felt and heard something come out. Then immediately another push. I was weak. I just held my head in my hands for a moment. Then I decided to stand up. I looked. There was my baby, the whitish cord and what I thought surely must be the placenta.

I started sobbing and lay down in the floor. I stared and stared at my son. I was horrified that I had just had him in a commode.

His right leg moved. He curled up a bit like he was cold; I screamed for Violene! No one came. I managed to get to the doorway, pants down, blood everywhere and yelled again. I went back to my baby. I heard her say she'd be right there.

I showed her Rowan, told her he was alive and moving and to call 911! She took a quick look, said he's not moving now and she'd be back to take care of things while walking out. I called her again. I was touching Rowan softly and he moved again. I called her back. Rowan jumped, I think startled by the loud sound of my calling for help. I showed her that he was moving and alive. I begged her to hurry and call 911, now!

She said for me to lie down and she would get her supervisor. No one came.

I continued to try to caress and comfort my son by rubbing his back, tummy and chest. I stroked his precious little head and kept telling him I loved him and we would be OK. I was afraid to move him because I did not want to do anything that might end up hurting him. I pushed my pinky into his little hand and his fingers curled around me. Still no one was coming. I was terrified but trying not to let him know I was scared. I kept telling him what a beautiful son he was and that we were going to be safe soon.

Staff told Angele not to call 911, so she decided to call her friend.

I left Rowan for two seconds, grabbed the phone, jumped back into the bathroom to be with him, calling my girlfriend 'Sharon' at the same time. I told her Rowan was alive and no one was helping us to please call an ambulance to the clinic immediately and hung up.

Angele's friend did call 911. You can read the transcript of the 911 calls here.

I stayed beside Rowan talking to him, telling him how strong he was being and how proud I was of him. I told him God must really want us to be together for him to make it through everything he had just been through and that Mommy was so sorry but so happy to have a chance to love him. I told him he was a strong little miracle and that I couldn't wait for him to meet his brother and sister. I just kept touching him, trying to warm him with my hands and talking to him so he would not feel any more afraid than he already must.

Then Rowan stopped moving.

Angele described her son:

He was perfect, slightly pale and a little translucent. His eyebrows were pale but wide and well-defined. You could see little hairs on his face and head. He had the tiniest little fingernails and toenails. I noticed they already had a little bit of growth. His mouth was lovely. He was this perfectly formed one pound, one ounce human being. He was beautiful. He had been so strong.

I wrapped him in [a] blue pad instead of one of the wet blankets. I just kept kissing him and telling him I loved him so much. I told him I was sorry I couldn't get anyone to help us and I was so sorry for ever coming here.

You can see photos of Rowan here.

A staff member came into the bathroom and demanded that Angele give her the baby. Angele refused.

Though Angele's friend had asked for rescue for the baby, Angele didn't see any ambulance staff at the clinic, only police. Angele told the police that she didn't want to give her baby to the clinic staff, that she wanted to take him to the funeral home for the funeral she had planned prior to the abortion.

Even though staff had originally told Angele that she would have to stay until after she'd been examined by the doctor, once Rowan had died they told her to leave, and she was discharged without being examined.

Here is A Message from Baby Rowan's Mother:

I wish that I had such a network and support before, I would still be pregnant. It is my hope that many things will transpire as a result of coming forward with my experience.

I hope that women will see my humiliation and remorse and seek forgiveness if they are post abortive.

I want to do everything in my power to see that this does not happen to other babies or mothers.

I want women in crisis pregnancies to see that whether they are of 6 weeks or 28 weeks gestation, that abortion will haunt them for the rest of their lives. I would like for them to know that no matter how little you want the pregnancy itself, you will want, love and cherish your child. Those 9 months of crisis are the toughest. If you make it through that, the rewards come 1000 fold!

If they choose not to keep their child; that adoption is easier than abortion, although that is not what most post abortive women thought before they terminated.

Finally I hope that women who remain pro choice will fight for these clinics to be more strictly regulated. As feminists, they should demand and expect it!

I think that even women who are pro choice, would not want to come face to face with what I have been through on any level. I also think they would agree, that having an infant born alive and left to die or literally murdered in some cases, is legally and morally wrong.

It is very shameful to step forward and admit publicly that I have been so wrong as to “choose” to take the life of my child. On the other hand if it will accomplish any or all of the above, then it is my duty, isn’t it? That is so long as I protect the children I have here first and foremost. I know God wants me to put them first, just as I should have with Rowan.

Points I'd like to raise regarding this incident:

1. Clearly, pre-abortion counseling is woefully inadequate at this "clinic." If a woman changes her mind in an instant like that, it's hard to argue that she really "needed" the abortion, or that she'd been prepared for the full ramifications of what she was signing up for.
2. Supposedly abortion clinics exist to support women's choices. Where was their respect for Angele's choice to call an ambulance for her son?
3. A lot of prolifers cast stones at Angele, not understanding at all how she could have made the decision to have an abortion while wanting to have the procedure be quick and painless for a baby she'd named and planned a funeral for. What they don't seem to understand is that first of all, people in a crisis make terrible decisions; this is part of why bereaved people are usually told not to make major life decisions for a year, to let their decision-making abilities come back to normal. Second of all, you can't live in an atmosphere of poison and not be damaged by it. Angele lived, as we all do, in a society that says over and over again that abortion is moral, not merely harmless but palliative and merciful, etc. In a moment of duress Angele recognized that her own decision making abilities were impaired and she trusted the professionals around her -- the "Christian" counselor she was seeing for months, and the "counselors" at the clinic. She was adrift on a sea of despair and confusion and latched onto the wrong planks. She's painfully aware of this. Now. When it's too late. She realized she'd placed her trust in the wrong people as soon as she saw her son in the toilet. Hindsight is 20/20. She's trying to make it right now. Stop throwing stones. Or would you prefer she'd hardened her heart and become a convert to the abortion cause? That she fight to see that her own nightmare is lived by even more women? She repented the moment she saw her son. Her sin is cast away, as far as the east is from the west, the Bible says. Let it go already.

   Articles on Angele's nightmare:

   • Abortion staff ignores baby boy born alive?
   • Will justice be done for baby Rowan?
   • Abortion Clinic Workers Refuse To Help Mother Screaming For Them To Call 911 After Her Baby Was Aborted Alive
   • Abortion Clinic Workers Refuse To Help Mother Screaming to Save Live Child
   • Looking Baby Rowan in the Face
   • A truly sickening story
   • After-Abortion Autopsy Can't Rule Out Live Birth - Shows Abortion Clinic Claims False
   • Culture of Death: Baby Rowan's Story
   • Innocent Blood
   • Baby Rowan's Autopsy Report Confirms Part of Mother's Story

April 2, 1943: Physician Accused in Woman's Death

On April 2, 1943, a 31-year-old domestic servant named Ellen Haro died at Illinois Masonic Hospital in Chicago. Before her death from a criminal abortion, she identified a doctor whose name was not given in news coverage.

For some reason the inquest was started in early April but put off until April 23.

Watch Who Was the Abortion Doctor?  on YouTube.

"Physician Hunted After Abortion Victim's Death," Chicago Daily Tribune, April 4, 1943

April 2, 1912: Was The Midwife Guilty?

According to the Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database, 25-year-old homemaker Elizabeth Jorgeson died on April 2, 1912 from an abortion perpetrated that day by Katie Sauer, whose profession is not given. Sauer was held by the Coroner's Jury and indicted by a Grand Jury on November 30. The case never went to trial.

An article in the Chicago Inter-Ocean from the year before Elizabeth's death identifies a Chicago woman named Katie Sauer as a midwife. I am working to verify if the midwife and the abortionist are the same person. If the Katie Sauer implicated in Elizabeth's death is indeed this midwife, that would be typical. Abortions in Chicago in that era were most often perpetrated by either doctors or midwives.

April 1, 1933: Self-Induced in New York

According to New York death records, 38-year-old homemaker Julia Cerrone Carrotore died April 1, 1933 at Kings County Hospital in New York. Her death was attributed to septicemia following a self-induced abortion.

Watch Self-Induced in New York on YouTube.

April 1, 1934: One of Six Clustered Victims of Dr. Guy Brewer

Dr. Guy E. Brewer

Ruby Ford, a 26-year-old homemaker, died on April 1, 1934, 11 days after an abortion committed on March 20 "at the combination bachelor dwelling and office" of Dr. Guy E. Brewer, a beloved philanthropist in the small town of Graber, Oklahoma. So popular was Brewer that the husband of one of his six abortion victims was fired from his job in retaliation for reporting the death to the police.

Brewer had graduated from the University of Louisville in 1906 and had been practicing medicine in Garber for 21 of the 29 years he had been a physician. He supported young men during their university studies, maintaining houses for them to live in. Those he had educated over the years rushed immediately to his defense. Though Brewer had spent many long years helping boys and young men, his impact on women's lives was evidently lightning-fast.

I believe that Ruby was the first woman to die under Brewer's dubious care. The other dead patients are:

• Hermoine Fowler, a 20-year-old coed, who died Jun 27, 1934
• Doris Jones, a 20-year-old mother of two, who died April 11, 1935
• Wanda Lee Gray, age 20, who died April 9, 1935
• Myrtle Helen Rose, age 21, who died December 23, 1931
• Elizabeth Shaw, age 23, whose death date I've been unable to determine

Brewer entered guilty pleas and was sentenced to six four-year sentences, to run concurrently, for the six abortion deaths.

Watch Abortion Doctor: The Six Dead Patients of Guy Brewer on YouTube.

Source:

• "Murder Charges Multiply On Philanthropic Doctor," Miami (OK) Daily News-Record, May 5, 1935

March 30 and 31, 1930: One Doctor, Two Days, Two Deaths

Gladys Anderson

During an inquest into the March 30, 1930 death of Gladys Anderson, an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Illinois, word came that Cleo Hinton, a 24-year-old stenographer from Champaign, Illinois, had also died from a botched abortion. Both deaths were linked to Dr. Thomas Eade.

Cleo died in a Champaign hospital on March 31 due to peritonitis caused by an abortion. Eade was charged with murder in her death but was acquitted. Nevertheless the medical board was not satisfied and investigated to see if the evidence of his complicity was enough to revoke his license. 

Eade told the state medical board that when Cleo had come to him on March 23, he believed that she was suffering from intestinal influenza which could not have been caused by an abortion.

Watch One Doctor, Two Days, Two Dead Women on YouTube.

Newly added source: "Doctor Defends Self on Stand in State Probe," Chicago Sunday Tribune, December 14, 1930

March 29, 2015: It Took Her Over 21 Years to Die

 

It took her 21 years, 8 months, and 28 days to die.

Christi Stile was only 17 when she came home from roller skating with a friend. She looked shaken and distressed, but when her parents asked her what was wrong, she said that she had just had harsh words with somebody and didn't want to talk about it. Kay and Fred Stile gave the incident no more thought for a long, long time.

Four months later, Christi came to her mother and said that she was pregnant. She was crying, saying that she just couldn't have this baby; it would kill her. In retrospect, Kay said that this is what one should expect from a 17-year-old girl. But at the time, although Fred and Kay disapproved of abortion, Kay agreed to drive Christi to her abortion appointment at Aurora's Mayfair Women's Center.

To make a sad situation even sadder, the abortion was scheduled for the day after Christi's 18th birthday, July 1, 1993. Even though they'd been referred to Mayfair by a Planned Parenthood, Kay and Christi were nervous. Was abortion really safe? Kay went with Christi for the informed consent session and asked about safety. She was reassured that the only risk was of heavy bleeding, and that the clinic had everything on hand to deal with that situation should it arise. Kay felt reassured.

Kay stayed in the waiting area as Christi went back for her abortion. Suddenly, the demeanor of the staff changed. There was something wrong, Kay was sure. She was also sure that Christi was the patient who was in some sort of trouble. Kay questioned a staffer, who told her that Christi had experienced a minor complication and that she was being taken to the hospital for observation. Purely routine -- she would be discharged tomorrow. There was no cause for alarm, Kay was assured. Christi was fine; they were just being cautious.

Kay rushed to the hospital in a near panic. When she was arrived, staff told her that she couldn't see Christi until she calmed herself. Steeling her nerve, Kay steadied herself and was led to a patient's bedside.

The girl in the bed was unconscious, stuck full of tubes. Her face was swollen and distorted.

"That's not my daughter," Kay told them. But a nurse handed her a plastic bag containing Christi's jewelry. The girl in the bed was Christi.

Kay had to do the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life: call her husband and tell him he didn't have his daughter any more. She was alive, but she was no longer the same Christi.

Fred and Kay later learned what had happened at Mayfair. Abortionist Ronald Kuseski, not an anesthesiologist, had administered sedatives to Christi through her IV. After the abortion, he looked up to find Christi pale, with bluish lips, and no pulse or respiration. Her heart had stopped. Paramedics were summoned, who managed to restore Christi's pulse and respiration before rushing her to the hospital.

Fred and Kay provided care for 22 years

The clinic had no record of Christi's vital signs being recorded during the abortion. Although Kuseski's attorney insisted that the clinic had a "crash cart" to deal with cardiorespiratory arrest, Kay says that Kuseski had told her that the clinic had no "crash cart." The medical board investigation found that Kuseski didn't have pulse oximetery equipment in place for Christi's abortion. Kuseski denied any misconduct during Christi's abortion. The Medical Board sent him a "Letter of Admonition" telling him to adhere to "Anesthesia Monitoring Guidelines" in the future, and to attend CPR and Advanced Cardiac Life Support training.

Perhaps out of concern that Fred and Kay might blame Christi's boyfriend for what had happened to her, Christi's friend told them what had really happened the night she and Christi had gone skating. Christi had been so upset not because she'd had a tiff with a friend, but because an acquaintance had raped her behind the rink.

Standing at Christi's bedside during the filming of Christi's Choice, a documentary video about the family's ordeal, Fred Stile commented that had Christi had her baby instead of having the abortion, he'd be changing diapers on his grandchild instead of on his incapacitated daughter. The baby, of course, would have long since been out of diapers by the time the video was released.

Christi finally died of her lingering complications on March 29, 2015, at the age of 39. Her baby would have been 21 years old.  

Watch It Took Her Nearly 22 Years to Die on YouTube.

March 28, 2014: Would "TRAP" Have Saved Lakisha?

 Abortion-rights groups have been fighting to halt laws that would treat abortion clinics like ambulatory surgical centers. The abortion lobby insists that regulations such as size of doorways and hallways and elevators are just nit-picky and have nothing to do with women's well-being. What they don't want you to know is why these size requirements are included in ambulatory surgery center regulations. If a patient is having a life-threatening emergency, EMS workers need to be able to get the patient onto a gurney and perform resuscitation efforts while moving the patient from the procedure room into the ambulance.

On this date in 2014, 22-year-old Lakisha Wilsondied because a clinic was not laid out to allow easy access by an ambulance gurney.

Lakisha Wilson

Operation Rescue obtained the autopsy report. Lakisha went to Preterm Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio on March 21, 2014. She was 19.4 weeks pregnant. Further investigation by Operation Rescue reveals further details on the pathetic excuse for treatment Lakisha received at the clinic, as well as how the substandard conditions in the clinic contributed to Lakisha's death. After the safe, legal abortion, performed by Lisa Perierra, she began bleeding heavily because her uterus had become soft (atony). 

The procedure rooms at Preterm are on the third floor of the building. When emergency medical services arrived, the elevator was malfunctioning. They were delayed in getting the gurney to Lakisha due to this problem. When they entered the room, where Lakisha still lay on the abortion table with her legs in the stirrups, they found her abortionist, Dr. Lisa Perriera, trying to resuscitate her with a pediatric-sized Ambu-Bag. The IV for administering medications had been torn loose somehow by clinic staff. 

EMS began working to revive Lakisha, who had no pulse and was not breathing. The medics were able to get her heart going but were hampered in their further resuscitation efforts because the elevator was too small to properly accommodate the gurney; Lakisha had to be taken into the elevator in a seated position that did not provide adequate access to her airway. Several house later she was finally taken to Chase University Medical Center, where she was placed on life support and pronounced dead on March 28.

Here is video, with 911 audio, of an ambulance call two years before Lakisha's death. This patient, like Lakisha, was hemorrhaging due to uterine atony. In this patient's case, the elevator wasn't working at all. Fortunately, she survived.

Watch Trapped Because There Was No TRAP on YouTube.

March 27, 1929: An Abortion-Rights Poster Child

Clara Bell Duvall

According to the National Organization for Women web site, Clara Bell Duvall was a 32-year-old married mother of five, aged 6 months to 12 years. She and her family were living with her parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania due to financial problems. NOW says that Clara attempted a self-induced abortion with a knitting needle. Though she was seriously ill and severe pain, NOW says, Clara's doctor delayed hospitalizing her for several weeks. Her death, at a Catholic hospital on March 27, 1929, was attributed to pneumonia.

I'd welcome any verifying information on Mrs. Duvall's death. After all, NOW also claims that Becky Bell died from complications of an illegal abortion, when in fact she died of pneumonia concurrent with a miscarriage. (There was no evidence that Becky's pregnancy had been tampered with in any way.) But if people who think abortion is a good idea want to blame Clara's death on abortion, I'll let them claim her as somebody their ideology killed.

Clara Duvall seems to be the woman described in the chapter, "Marilyn," in The Worst of Times by Patricia G. Miller. Marilyn was Clara's daughter. There are differences in Marilyn's story and in the story NOW relates, but I was able to find enough information matching "Claudia" with the real Clara Bell Duval to conclude that they are the same woman.

"Claudia"

Marilyn gives her mother's name as Claudia, and her age as 34. The difference in ages may be attributed to people taking the years of the woman's birth and death and calculating her age without taking the months into account. Marilyn also said that her mother sang with the Pittsburgh light opera company, so it is possible that Marilyn might be using a false name for her mother to preserve the family's privacy.

Clara/Claudia's association with the opera company may also explain the elegant portrait on NOW's site -- a portrait that a poverty-stricken and desperate woman would have been unlikely to afford.

The following facts match:

• Five children, from an infant to a 12-year-old
  
• Living in Pittsburgh
  
• Died in March of 1929
  
• Death originally attributed to pneumonia
  
• The woman used a knitting needle
  
• Was at home for several days before being hospitalized
  
• Died in a hospital
  
• Cared for until her death by her usual doctor who seemed at a loss as to how to care for his moribund patient

Marilyn said that her brother Gerald was the oldest, twelve years old when Clara died. Eileen was ten. Rose was eight, Marilyn was six, and Constance was 18 months. Marilyn describes poignantly the difference between her life before her mother's death and her life after losing her mother. The loss was truly shattering for the entire family.

Marilyn said that her mother had gotten help from a friend for a successful abortion between the births of Marilyn and Constance. Marilyn didn't have any details of the first abortion, and got what she knew about the fatal abortion from her sister Eileen, who had spoken at length with their mother when she was hospitalized -- though it seems odd that a dying woman would be explaining to a 10-year-old girl how she performed a knitting-needle abortion on herself.

Differences in the Stories

NOW's story differs from Marilyn's in many aspects, however. Aside from the different age and name, the following aspects do not match:

• NOW has the family living with the woman's parents; Marilyn said that they were living in a large house owned by her mother's parents.
  
• NOW indicates that the family were too poor to afford a home of their own. Marilyn said that they lived in a large house, and that her father was an editor of one of Pittsburgh's daily newspapers, and that he did freelance public relations for sports events. Marilyn also said that one of her mother's friends was the wife of a well-known Pittsburgh industrialist. This is not a likely friendship for a destitute woman forced to move her family of seven into her parents' home. Marilyn also said that her mother was laid to rest in a magnificent mahogany casket with a satin lining, hardly the sort of burial a poverty-crushed widower could afford for his dead wife. Marilyn also said that the casket lay in the parlor, not a room that poor people were likely to have. In fact, Marilyn describes how shocking it was, after her mother's death, to go live with poor relatives. Poverty was a new experience for the child. In fact, Marilyn describes a riverboat outing the family took before her mother's death. She described how the girls were dressed in matching navy blue coats with red satin linings, and her brother had a jacket and tie.
  

Reconciling the Stories

Census data from 1920 indicates that Clara Duvall was the wife of Grafton Duvall. Grafton was a newspaper editor. In 1920 the couple had two children, Grafton Jr., age 4, and Elinor Jane, age 20 months. The couple and their children lived at 1616 Westfield Avenue, the same address at Clara's parents, Joseph and Sadie Bell and their two sons, Harry, age 31, and Joseph Jr., age 30. Joseph Sr. was an engineer. Harry was listed as "invalid," meaning incapacitated and unable to work. Joseph Jr. was listed as a fireman on the railroad. 

The Duvall family were still at the 1616 Westfield Avenue address at the time of Clara's death. 

The December 3, 1914 Pittsburgh Post notes: "Miss Bell's Betrothal: An interesting engagement announced yesterday was that of Miss Clara Jane Bell, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Bell, of Aspinwall, to Grafton O. Duvall, son of Dr. and Mrs. Wirt Duvall of Baltimore. Mr. Duvall is a student in the University of Maryland, where he is in the law department."

Grafton and Clara married in 1915 in Aspinwall, Pennsylvania when he was 24 years old and she was 20. Grafton Jr. was born February 28, 1916 in Baltimore; Eleanor Jane was born June 28, 1918 in Baltimore. The couple moved to Pittsburgh in 1926, where their daughter Claire was born on September 10, 1927. The other children, Roxanna Bell and Mildred Linn, were mentioned in Clara's obituary, "Death Claims Church Singer," in the March 28, 1929 Pittsburgh Press. 

The January 9, 1922 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notes for the night's KDKA radio program that Mrs. Grafton Duvall would sing soprano solos, "Summer Wind," "Mighty Lak a Rose," "My Shadows," and "The World is Waiting." In fact, Clara shows up frequently in the society pages as a soloist at various events in the city.

So there are two possibilities:

1. Clara Bell Duvall and Claudia are two different women, both with five children, both of whom lived in homes owned by their parents, who both performed knitting-needle abortions in the same city in the same month, and who both died in hospitals and both had their deaths wrongly attributed to pneumonia.
   
2. Clara and Claudia are the same woman, and but NOW turned her from a prosperous matron and opera singer into a wretched slum mother in order to make her situation seem more desperate.

If what NOW and Marilyn describe is accurate, then Clara/Claudia's abortion was unusual in that it was self-induced, rather than performed by a doctor, as was the case with perhaps 90% of criminal abortions.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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March 25, 1941: Woman's Body Found on Country Road

Addie Wilson, age 48, was indicted for manslaughter and abortion conspiracy in connection with the death of 25-year-old Marie Swift. Marie's body was found on a country road on March 25, 1941.

Herman Ward, Marie's fiancé, was indicted for abortion and conspiracy.

Addie Wilson's 16-year-old son, Clarence, was held as a material witness.

Watch When Men Were Held Accountable on YouTube.

Source:

• "Indict Two in Death of Girl Found Dead in MD," Lancaster (PA) Intelligencer Journal, April 18, 1941