“Dottie” was a New Yorker seeking medical attention because she had started bleeding in the second trimester. She had suffered two miscarriages in the past and likely feared that she might lose this baby too. Unfortunately, the doctor’s dubious course of action would guarantee her baby’s death and her own.
The medical journal that recorded Dottie’s case does not specify what the diagnosis was, but the doctor decided to put Dottie through a hysterotomy abortion and a tubal ligation. This was a questionable course of action considering that hysterotomy abortion is associated with a very high maternal mortality rate. But since it qualified under the health exemption (“life of the mother” exception), it was completely legal.
The report of Dottie’s death raises questions. She was under general anesthesia for the abortion and tubal ligation, but would never wake up. The journal states that “Cardiac arrest ensued during the procedure, and the patient expired following completion of a tubal ligation, never having regained consciousness.”
Later research found that the risk of hysterotomy abortion concurrent with surgical sterilization was unjustified even in someone perfectly healthy. Today, medical knowledge has advanced beyond the antiquated approach of abortion for pregnancy complications— the recommendation that failed Dottie and her child.
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