November 19, 1984: Teen Leaps Off Overpass After Abortion

In October of 1984, 14-year-old Sandra Kaiser went to a Planned Parenthood with her 21-year-old half-sister, Karen Flynn, for a pregnancy test. The test was positive, and Sandra told Karen she wanted an abortion. Karen made an appointment and took Sandra to Reproductive Health Services (RHS) for a safe, legal abortion.

The Day of the Abortion

Grok AI illustration

Karen later said that during the counseling session, Sandra did not seem ambivalent, and said that she thought she was too young to have a child. Sandra also lied, saying that her mother knew of the abortion plan, approved of it, and had provided the money to pay for it. Three days later, Karen brought Sandra back to RHS for the abortion.

It is important to note that Sandra had already led a very troubled life. At age 7 she witnessed the stabbing death of one of her half-brothers. At age 11 she was diagnosed with a conduct disorder. By age 12 her problems included drinking alcohol, running away from home, temper outbursts, skipping school, crying, and nightmares about her brother's death. She was hospitalized at least twice and had received outpatient therapy and medication. She was, in short, a high-risk abortion patient, likely to suffer severe psychological after-effects.

Sandra signed the consent form, and Karen signed in the space for parent/guardian even though she was not Sandra's guardian. The two sisters also filled out the other paperwork for the abortion. They checked "No" in answer to the question, "Have you ever been hospitalized other than for childbirth." Karen later said that they checked "No" despite Sandra's psychiatric hospitalization because she believed the question only pertained to hospitalization for physical ailments.

Sandra was then shown a film called First Trimester Informed Consent. The film said, "A few women have negative emotional feelings after an abortion. You may feel slightly depressed, but those feelings are normal. .. [S]evere depression is not to be expected. If you are severely depressed after this abortion, it may be that your feelings about ending a pregnancy have not yet been completely resolved."

The End for Sandra

After the abortion, Sandra holed up in her room a lot, crying. On November 19, Sandra's mother overheard her talking to her boyfriend on the phone. The boyfriend had supposedly gotten another girl pregnant. Sandra said that she was going to go jump off a bridge. 

Half an hour later, Sandra walked about half a mile to the Chippewa Street Pedestrian bridge, which crossed Arsenal street, a busy 4-lane road with poor lighting in the evening disk. The pedestrian bridge had chain link fencing about four feet high to prevent jumping, but a jogger reported seeing Sandra climb over the fence on the south side. After hesitating briefly, Sandra let go of the fence and jumped feet-first about 25 to 30 feet into the southbound lanes.

Sandra fell into the path of a green sedan driving by a 35-year-old local man. He slammed on the brakes but was unable to avoid hitting her, throwing her about 10 feet ahead into median and southbound lanes. He stopped immediately and ran to Sandra's side. She was conscious but moaning, "It hurts.... Help me." The man stood near the fallen girl and waved his arms, trying to slow traffic and prevent her from being hit a second time.

A construction worker in his late 20s was diving behind the green sedan in his blue pickup truck. He saw the man standing over Sandra, waving his arms, so he slammed on his brakes and flashed his lights and honked his horn to try to alert traffic. He pulled over to block one lane.

A woman in her 40s was driving north in her white compact car. She saw the stopped green sedan, the man waving his arms, and the pickup truck with the honking horn and flashing headlights. Thinking that she was seeing road rage related to an accident, she panicked and accelerated past the scene, running over Sandra's legs and abdomen. Upon arriving at a friend's house, about a mile away, she trembled and said, "Something terrible happened back there. I think I hit someone." Her friend convinced her that they should return to the scene together. 

By the time they arrived, the police and EMS were there. A bystander had gone through Sandra's pockets, found her ID, and hurried to fetch her mother, Geneva Edison. Geneva screamed her daughter's name but Sandra, "unrecognizable" from her injuries, didn't respond. By then she was unconscious and barely clinging to life. Medics intubated her, applied tourniquets, and loaded her into the ambulance. 

While the ambulance rushed Sandra the mile-and-a-half to St Louis Children's hospital, the police took statements. The bystanders and drivers were badly shaken, as was the woman who had run over Sandra but returned to the scene. No charges were pressed against anybody.

Sandra coded once on the way to the hospital, but the medics were able to resuscitate her. She was met at the ER by a trauma team and taken directly to an operating room. She had a ruptured spleen ruptured liver, fractures of her pelvis and femurs, rib fractures, and collapsed lungs. During a two-hour surgery, doctors fought to repair her damaged blood vessels. She was given four units of blood and transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit, still sedated. 

In spite of heroic efforts, Sandra was pronounced dead at 10:30 pm from multiple internal injuries and exsanguination. Her death was ruled a suicide.

The Lawsuit

Sandra's mother sued RHS for her daughter's death, charging that they had failed to contact the her mother in compliance with the law. An expert noted that at the time of Sandra's death, she had been depressed for several weeks, that the suicide was a direct consequence of this depression, and that the abortion was the "straw that broke the camel's back." The judge ruled that Sandra's mother and her witnesses failed to prove that the clinic had been negligent in exploring Sandra's history, and that Sandra had not been proved to have killed herself due to an uncontrollable impulse. To add insult to injury, the suicide had occurred during the time that the Missouri law governing consent of minors to abortion was enjoined by the Federal courts, so the law to protect Sandra and girls like her did not apply.

Other Cases

Other patients who took their lives after their abortions include:

• "Sandra," who killed herself after her abortion in 1971
• Jade," who took her own life after a second-trimester abortion in 1973
• Carol Cunningham, who shut herself in her garage and died from the exhaust fumes in 1986
• Arlen della Cruz, who hanged herself after an abortion in 1992
• "Haley Mason," who overdosed on pills and alcohol after an abortion in 2001
• Stacy Zallie, who committed suicide after a coerced abortion in 2002
• Lila Ashley Barnett, who overdosed after an abortion in 2005
• Laura Grunas, who shot her baby's father then herself after an abortion in 2006
• "Lillian," who took her own life after a medication abortion in 2014
• "Talia," who shot herself in the head after a chemical abortion in 2022

Watch Sister's Help Leads to Teen's Suicide on YouTube.

Watch Sister's Help Leads to Teen's Suicide on Rumble.

Source:

• "Deliberations Set Today In Abortion-Suicide Suit," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 1, 1991
• "Jury Considering Abortion-Suicide Suit," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 1, 1991
• "Abortion Clinic Did Not Cause Suicide, Jury Says," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 2, 1991
• "Jury refuses to link girl's suicide abortion," Columbia Missourian, March 4, 1991
• Edison v. Reproductive Health Services, 863 S.S.2d 621(1993)
• Grok summary of records, completed November 1, 2025