June 22, 2005: Three Abortion Attempts, One Dead Woman, No Autopsy

“Tara Roe” was a 32-year-old Black woman who died, along with her unborn baby, after three consecutive abortion attempts. 

Tara initially went to an abortion facility for a surgical abortion. However, this attempt failed because of a fibroid that blocked attempts to insert tools into her endocervical canal.

The abortionist administered mifepristone for a chemical abortion on May 21 and sent her home with instructions to take 600 mg of misoprostol on May 24. However, Tara reported that the pill fell out of her vagina. (Note that mifepristone suppresses the immune system of the female reproductive tract and that the FDA had never approved use of the drug as a vaginal suppository. Administering the drug vaginally can trigger sudden-onset fatal toxic shock syndrome.) An ultrasound showed that she was still pregnant.

A third abortion was attempted, this one surgical. The abortionist managed to carry out the abortion despite the fibroid, but Tara suffered severe bleeding as a result. (It is likely that surgical instruments were forced past the obstruction and caused damage.) The bleeding reportedly stopped spontaneously and Tara was discharged despite having low hematocrit from all the blood loss.

Tara later went to the emergency room. It was reported that she “apparently looked OK” but had a white blood cell count of over 14,000, abdominal pain, subjective fever and low hematocrit. She was admitted to the ward.

Grok AI illustration

24 hours later, Tara suffered decompensation, hypotension and shortness of breath. She was transferred emergently to the ICU and had to be intubated. Workup for a pulmonary embolism started, but her condition became so bad that she was brought to the OR for a hysterectomy.

Unfortunately, Tara was so sick that even hospitalization in the ICU, intubation and hysterectomy were not enough to save her. She died on the operating table at 11:20 P.M. on June 22, 2005.

Tara’s family decided not to have an autopsy performed. Pathology findings from her uterus, however, shed light on her condition. The uterus showed necrotic breakdown and endometrial inflammation. The endometrium contained serosanguinous pus. Cultures from the uterine cavity grew Peptostreptococcus. The fibroid that had blocked the first abortion attempts was now degenerated and full of thick, foul-smelling green pus. Cultures of the fibroid grew Prevotella. The CDC listed the cause of her death as “delayed onset toxic-shock like syndrome.”

While the medical professional who submitted a report of Tara’s death to MedWatch did not believe that mifepristone or misoprostol were the cause of her illness, they noted her surgical abortions. It is possible that when the instruments were forced past the fibroid and triggered the bleeding, the injury became badly infected. The CDC included Tara’s death on their list of maternal deaths after mifepristone/misoprostol abortion.

MedWatch report document (identifying information redacted, all else included)