1983: "Medically Indicated" Abortion Kills Teen

Barbara May Hoppert was a sixteen-year-old high school sophomore when she checked into Loma Linda University Hospital for an abortion. Barbara was in the second trimester of her pregnancy. She was having the abortion on the recommendation of her physician, because of a congenital heart condition.

The abortion was performed on February 22, 1983. During the procedure, Barbara's heart stopped. Physicians were unable to revive her, and she was pronounced dead on the operating table.

The following comment was posted on the RealChoice blog:

• It's been almost 24 years since I was at the Loma Linda Hospital and was roomed with Barbara Hoppert, but not year goes by when Feb 22nd rolls around and I don't think of her. She died that day during her abortion procedure. I just now put her name into google and found your article on her. It was barely 4 sentences and seemed as cold as her death. She was once alive and had such a sad end and dramatic story. It still brings me to tears today thinking about her last night alive... how she was treated by her own family and the staff at the hospital. We watched Square Pegs that night on tv. And she told me about the boy who had impregnated her... She left early the next morning and I wished her good luck... An hour later a woman came to the room, later I found out that was her "real" mother whom Barbara thought was her sister. She missed seeing Barbara that one last time.... Barbara's story is very tragic. I am so very sad that she was so alone her last night alive. I was her only comfort and I was a complete stranger. Don't know how comforting I was other than I cried with her and listened.... Knowing the pain she was in.... She remains in my prayers. Just thought you should know she was more than just part of your cause.

Thanks to the woman who came forward to share this memory of Barbara.

Barbara's was not the only tragic death caused by doctors who recommended (or excused) abortion as a life-saving or health-preserving option for the mother:

• Allegra Roseberry was pushed into an abortion in order to obtain experimental cancer treatment.
• Anjelica Duarte sought an abortion on the advice of her physician, and ended up dying under the care of a quack.
• Christin Gilbert died after an abortion George Tiller holds was justified on grounds of maternal health.
• Erika Peterson died in 1961 when her doctors obtained her husband's permission to perform a "therapeutic" abortion.
• "Molly" Roe died in 1975 when her doctors made the dubious decision to perform a saline abortion to improve her chances of surviving a lupus crisis.

The whole idea of abortion for the life of the mother is based on misconceptions, both about caring for pregnant women and about what constitutes an abortion. Watch this video to learn more.

From the 1870s Through the 1980s

One of 16 Dead at National Abortion Federation Chain

Seventeen-year-old Laniece Dorsey underwent a safe and legal abortion at a Family Planning Associates Medical Group facility in Orange County, California, on February 6, 1986. FPA is a National Abortion Federation member facility.

Laniece lapsed into a coma, was transferred to a nearby hospital, and died later that day.

The Orange County Sheriff's Department medical examiner blamed the death on cardiorespiratory arrest due to the anesthesia, although he also found "a thick adherent layer of fibrinous material containing moderate numbers of inflammatory infiltrates" in Laniece's uterus.

Laniece wasn't the first or last young woman to die from abortion at a facility owned by FPA head honcho Edward Campbell Allred. Other patients known to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include

• Denise Holmes, age 24, 1970
• Patricia Chacon, age 16, 1984
• Mary Pena, age 43, 1984
• Josefina Garcia, age 37, 1985
• Joyce Ortenzio, age 32, 1988
• Tami Suematsu, age 19, 1988
• Deanna Bell, age 13, 1992
• Susan Levy, age 30, 1992
• Christina Mora, age 18, 1994
• Ta Tanisha Wesson, age 24, 1995
• Nakia Jorden, 1998
• Maria Leho, 1999
• Kimberly Neil, 2000
• Maria Rodriguez, age 22, 2000
• Chanelle Bryant, age 22, 2004

Allred's facilities remain members of the National Abortion Federation despite these deaths.

Scanty Information from Cleveland

Life Dynamics lists 26-year-old billing clerk Kathy Davis on their "Blackmun Wall of safe and legal abortions. Citing Kathy's death certificate, Life Dynamics says that Kathy died at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital of heart failure and hypertension following a legal abortion on February 6, 1987.


An Airman's Grief

Elizabeth Hellman was the 35-year-old wife of an Air Force major who had been stationed in Tokyo for over a year. Evidently Betty found the separation lonely, for she became pregnant while he was away.

On January 28, 1952, Betty was admitted to the Tinker Air Force Base hospital in critical condition, suffering from pain and low blood pressure. Her red blood count was very low, and her white count very high, indicating infection. She admitted to having undergone an abortion on January 25.

When questioned by investigators on January 31, Betty said that friends had referred her to a woman named Jane. She was shown a photo and identified the woman in it, 43-year-old Mrs. Jane McDaniel White, as her abortionist. She gave White's address as the place she had gone for the abortion.

Betty said that White had put her off for several days while she got over her fear of undergoing the abortion. She promised White $100, but only paid her $50. White initiated the abortion with some kind of packing and sent Betty home.

Betty became very ill, and called White, who with her daughter came to Betty's home and "scraped her out".

After Betty gave her statement, police raided White's home. White and her daughter, Mrs. S. B. Anderson, Jr., were nowhere to be found. Police eventually tracked the pair down and arrested them for murder and procuring an abortion.

Betty died on February 6, from peritonitis. Her husband had managed to rush home from Tokyo in time to see his wife before she died. An autopsy verified that an abortion had been performed and had caused Betty's death.

The criminal case against White went well until the defense managed to have the Betty's deathbed statement, given on January 31, inadmissible because it couldn't be proved satisfactorily that Betty believed herself to be near death. With the deathbed statement thrown out, the case was dropped.

This had been White's third arrest for abortion charges. She had been convicted in 1947, under the name Jane McDaniel, and sentenced to seven years, but the conviction was thrown out on a technicality based on how advanced the girl's pregnancy had been. A new trial had been scheduled, but it never took place because the main prosecution witness had left the state or died. White was clearly operating as an abortionist, since an operating table, fashioned from an old restaurant table, and surgical instruments had been sized from her home at the time of her arrest -- "enough instruments and medicine to stock a small hospital." She was charged again in 1951 but the main witness had vanished and the case had been dismissed.


Mystery Abortion in Chicago

On February 6, 1919, 22-year-old homemaker Edna Griffith died at Chicago's Passavant Hospital from septic pneumonia initiating from complications of an abortion perpetrated by a person who was never identified.


Fatal Abortion Drugs

A Coroner's Inquest was held regarding the February 6, 1870 death of 22-year-old Mary Donigan. Mary died at the Brooklyn home of Mrs. Bridget Dillon, who testified that she'd known Mary for about 18 years. Mary had come to her home on a Monday afternoon about three weeks before her death, looking very sickly but not complaining of illness. By the time Friday came around, Mary was reporting being sick with diarrhea. Mrs. Dillon gave her some brandy at about 11:00 that night, but all this did was make Mary vomit.

Mary slept until noon the next day. Mrs. Dillon checked on her and found her appearing very ill. Mrs. Dillon offered to empty the slop pail in the room, but Mary said, "No, I've had a baby and it is in there; my mother sent me down to Margaret Farrell's, but she wouldn't keep me, so I thought I would come to you."

Mrs. Dillon looked in the pail and saw the baby, which she described as large -- in keeping with Mary's report of having been pregnant for about eight months. Mary reported that she had paid a doctor $5 for a bottle of medicine -- she refused to name this doctor -- and that she had thrown the bottle "in the water closet." Mrs. Dillon testified that Mary reported having taken the medicine about two or three weeks earlier, and that afterward she'd not felt her baby moving any more.

Mary likewise refused to divulge to Mrs. Dillon the name of her baby's father.

An old woman Mrs. Dillon believed to be Margaret Farrel came to help Mrs. Dillon care for Mary. Mrs. Dillon testified that she'd asked Mrs. Farrel what to do about the baby, and Mrs. Farrel had suggested getting a small box to bury the baby in. Mrs. Dillon went off in search of a box, and returned to Mary's room to find both Mrs. Farrel and the baby gone.

By Monday, Mary was up and dressed and went downstairs against Mrs. Dillon's advice. Mary quickly took ill again, so mrs. Dillon helped her back to her room and dosed her with castor oil. "She was quite exhausted."

Mrs. Dillon went to a druggist and described Mary's symptoms. The druggist provided some powders that she was to give to Mary every hour, but Mary didn't want to take more after the first dose, reporting that they only made her feel worse and blistered her mouth. Mrs. Dillon sent one of her "girls" to consult with the druggist but he had nothing further to offer.

Mary refused the services of either a doctor or a priest. The following morning, Mary had taken such a turn for the worse that Mrs. Dillon sent for both a doctor and a priest. The doctor, Matthew F. Regan, told Mrs. Dillon that Mary was dangerously ill.

Dr. Regan testified that he'd been summoned to a garret room where he found Mary in bed, "suffering from inflammation of the womb and the covering of the bowels." Mary reported being married and having suffered a miscarriage the preceeding Friday. Dr. Regan prescribed some medication and returned on Saturday.

At that time, Mary admitted that she wasn't married, and that she'd not seen a doctor or had any sort of abortion performed. He told her that her condition was very grave, "that I had seen women die who were not so low as she was." Mary identified a Mr. Burdie, who worked in the brick yards in Haverstraw, where Mary lived, as the father of the baby.

When Dr. Regan returned at noon on Sunday to check on Mary, he found her dead.

Dr. A. W. Shepard performed a post mortem examination on Mary and found no signs of instrumentation, but plenty of signs of infection in and around the uterus. He determined that she had died from an abortion.

Planned Parenthood Medical Abortion and a Midwife in Chicago

Death Drugs from Planned Parenthood, 2003

Hoa Thuy "Vivian" Tran, like Holly Patterson, got abortion drugs at a Planned Parenthood. Vivian,a 22-year-old teaching student from Fountain Valley, California age 22, followed the medical abortion protocol on December 23, 2003 after getting the drugs at the Costa Mesa, California Planned Parenthood.

On December 29, 2003, Vivian was vacationing with friends at a Las Vegas hotel and fell ill. She was rushed to a local hospital, where staff tried for 40 minutes to revive her, to no avail.

The autopsy showed that Vivian had died of sepsis caused by Clostridium sordelli bacteria in her uterus. Clostridium sordellii is a rare bacterium that can cause sudden severe toxic shock syndrome in previously healthy people.

Vivian‘s husband is suing the drug company, Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernadino Counties, and The Population Council Inc., in Orange County Superior Court. VIvian's death left him to raise their 5-year-old daughter alone.

Other women identified as having died of infection deaths after RU-486 deaths in the Los Angeles area: Chanelle Bryant, and Oriane Shevin. Chanelle got her abortion drugs at a Planned Parenthood, and Oriane and Vivian got theirs from National Abortion Federation members.

A Midwife's Work in Chicago, 1907

On December 29, 1907, 19-year-old Marcie Mayer died in St. Elizabeth's hospital in Chicago from complications of a criminal abortion. Mary Bing, a midwife, was arrested, tried, and sentenced to Joliet. A man named John Mansfield was also held by the coroner's jury, but acquitted by the judge. Marcie's abortion was atypical in that it was not performed by a physician.