June 21, 1983: Another Young Black Woman Dead In New York

All we know about “Vanna” is that she was a 26-year-old single Black woman from Queens, New York who underwent a legal abortion and died on June 21, 1983. The little data available came from the New York State Department Of Health’s Bureau of Biometrics.

A researcher for Life Dynamics archived the data after it was run in 1995 and gave the unidentified woman a pseudonym to avoid dehumanizing her as a number. At the time, the information they were able to obtain consisted of Vanna’s race, year of death, location and that she was between 25 and 29 years old.

Kevin Sherlock, author and researcher of The Scarlet Survey, also separately obtained data from the New York Department of Health on maternal deaths. In 2024, a researcher with ADR cross-referenced his findings with the previously archived NY Health Department data, confirming Vanna’s case and providing more specific information about her. But her real identity and the full scope of what she may have endured before her death is still unknown.

New York State Department Of Health’s Bureau of Biometrics (Abortion Related Deaths, Resident Data for 1983)

The Scarlet Survey, Kevin Sherlock

Blackmun Wall