"California Trusts Women." Can Women Trust California?

California's proposed new abortion-rights license plate is to take an oblique angle, using a  "California Trusts Women" theme.

Proceeds from the plate will benefit the Family Planning, Access, Care and Treatment (FPACT) program, which provides family planning services to 1.8 million Californians every year. Currently, the FPACT program is overwhelmingly supported by federal funding, with the federal government picking up 90 percent of the tab. FPACT funding is also a vital source of funding for Planned Parenthood reproductive health care services.

Since the money is going to Planned Parenthood and not to actual women, isn't the issue whether or not California can trust Planned Parenthood? And if so, to do what?

Edrica Goode , a 21-year-old woman who dreamed of becoming an attorney, trusted a Planned Parenthood in Riverside, California, in late January of 2007. Despite clear signs of infection, a nurse practitioner inserted laminaria (seaweed sticks that absorb vaginal moisture and expand, thus dilating the cervix) and sent her home. Not surprisingly, Edrica was quickly struck with an infection so swift and severe that it left her incoherent and unable to communicate the cause of her illness to her family or the medical professionals who tried but failed to save her life.

Diana Lopez, age 25, was 19 weeks pregnant when trusted Planned Parenthood in February, 2002. Had her abortion been performed with due care and diligence, it should have taken between 10 and 20 minutes. The doctor rushed through it in only six minutes, leaving Diana with severe internal lacerations. Before the day was over, Diana had bled to death, and her two young children were left motherless.

Holly Patterson age 18, trusted a Planned Parenthood in Hayward, California in September of 2003. They provided the drugs for a medication abortion. Rather than instruct Holly to administer the second drug inside her cheek to dissolve, which is the recommended method, Planned Parenthood instructed Holly to insert the drug vaginally. For reasons that are still not understood, administering the drug this way had been shown to trigger swiftly-fatal Toxic Shock Syndrome. This is what happened to Holly. By the time she got to the hospital, it was too late to save her.

Vivian Tran, 22 years old, decided in December of 2003 to trust the Costa Mesa Planned Parenthood facility. She died just as Holly Patterson died, from TSS linked to the vaginal rather than buccal (inside the cheek) administration of the second of two medication abortion drugs. Evidently Planned Parenthood had chosen not to learn anything from Holly Patterson's death.

So, California, the question is not whether or not you trust women. It is whether they can trust you. Will you continue to turn a blind eye, or will you stop pumping money into Planned Parenthood and start demanding that they earn your trust before you give them another dime?

A Community College Student and a Socialite Heiress

Quackery at Planned Parenthood, 2007

Edrica Karla Goode went to a Planned Parenthood in Riverside, California, on January 31, 2007, for a safe, legal second-trimester abortion. She was a little over 14 weeks pregnant.

A nurse there inserted laminaria to dilate Edrica's cervx, although Edrica had "odiferous creamy-colored discharge", indicative of a vaginal infection, at the time. Laminaria are sticks of seaweed that absorb moisture and expand, so they would wick any bacteria or viruses from the vagina into the uterus.

Edrica, who had not told her family about the abortion, did not return to the facility to have the laminaria removed and the abortion completed because her mental state had deteriorated overnight. She had became feverish, her mother said. She became mentally "confused and disoriented," not knowing what day it was, and started acting aggressively. She also began vomiting.

Planned Parenthood's patient profile for Edrica said that they mailed Edrica two letters telling her that she had to return and have the laminaria removed, but Edrica's mother said that the letters never arrived. She does indicate that Planned Parenthood called, but that Edrica was too sick to take the calls.

Edrica's family took her to Riverside County Regoinal Medical Center on February 4. A blood test there revealed the pregnancy to the physicians, but the hospital did not perform a pelvic exam because at the time Edrica was unable to consent to the examination due to confusion and inappropriate speech.

Edrica was treated in the medical ward for five days, then transferred to a psychiatric unit, which promptly sent her back to the medical unit to have them check her for possible sepsis. There, her condition continued to deteriorate. After Edrica's boyfriend told her family about the visit to Planned Parenthood, staff at the hospital performed a pelvic examination and discovered the laminaria, along with some gauze. Edrica miscarried that day, and died the next day, Valentine's Day.

The coroner's report attributes Edrica's death to toxic shock syndrome, prolonged retention of laminaria, and pregnancy. Which means that her death will likely be counted as a pregnancy death by health statisticians, but not as an abortion death because no abortion actually took place.

Edrica had been a student at Riverside Community College. Her mother said that she enjoyed traveling and reading. Her mother, Aletheia Meloncon, commented, "My daughter made a choice, but she didn't choose to die." She added, "A lost dog gets more attention than my daughter did. This has really torn at my family."

Edrica is the third known death among Planned Parenthood patients in California in the last four years. Holly Patterson, 18, died of an infection after an RU-486 abortion in 2003. Diana Lopez, 25, bled to death in 2002 after her cervix was punctured during the procedure. Edrica's mother's lawyer indicates that Planned Parenthood did not report any of these deaths to the state, as required by law.



A Socialite's Brutal Death in 1942

Florence Nimick Schnoor

At around 4:00 p.m. on February 14, 1942, socialite Florence Nimick Schnoor, age 24, died at St. Joseph's Hospital in New York of what the coroner called a "brutal and inept" illegal abortion.

Florence, grand-niece of Andrew Carnegie and heiress to a Pittsburgh steel fortune, had eloped with Richard H. Schnoor, sergeant-at-arms of the New York State Assembly, one week earlier. The couple had met the previous September at "a fashionable Greenwich tavern." After their elopement, they'd moved into Florence's rooms at The Maples.

Her husband reported that he had taken her to White Plains so she could catch a train to New York for a day's shopping. Later that morning, she called and asked him to pick her up at the station. He found her obviously ill and asking for a doctor. He took her straight to the hospital, where she died three hours later.

Doctors reported that Florence refused to discuss her case at all, much less implicate the abortionist, despite pleas from her husband.

Investigators contacted all 200 people whose names were in Florence's address book, but were unable to gain any clues as to who performed the fatal abortion. All they were able to piece together is that Florence evidently paid $40 for the abortion, since her husband reported that she had left for New York with $50 in her purse and there had been $3 in her purse when she was hospitalized..

Florence's husband was not implicated in her death; police believed that he had not even known Florence was pregnant.

Standing on her Grave

Edrica Karla Goode

Edrica Karla Goode, went to a Planned Parenthood in Riverside, California, on January 31, 2007, for a safe, legal second-trimester abortion. She was a little over 14 weeks pregnant.

A nurse there inserted laminaria to dilate Edrica's cervx, although Edrica had "odiferous creamy-colored discharge", indicative of a vaginal infection, at the time. Laminaria are sticks of seaweed that absorb moisture and expand, so they would wick any bacteria or viruses from the vagina into the uterus.

Edrica, who had not told her family about the abortion, did not return to the facility to have the laminaria removed and the abortion completed because her mental state had deteriorated overnight. She had became feverish, her mother said. She became mentally "confused and disoriented," not knowing what day it was, and started acting aggressively. She also began vomiting.

Planned Parenthood's patient profile for Edrica said that they mailed Edrica two letters telling her that she had to return and have the laminaria removed, but Edrica's mother said that the letters never arrived. She does indicate that Planned Parenthood called, but that Edrica was too sick to take the calls.

Edrica's family took her to Riverside County Regoinal Medical Center on February 4. A blood test there revealed the pregnancy to the physicians, but the hospital did not perform a pelvic exam because at the time Edrica was unable to consent to the examination due to confusion and inappropriate speech.

Edrica was treated in the medical ward for five days, then transferred to a psychiatric unit, which promptly sent her back to the medical unit to have them check her for possible sepsis. There, her condition continued to deteriorate. After Edrica's boyfriend told her family about the visit to Planned Parenthood, staff at the hospital performed a pelvic examination and discovered the laminaria, along with some gauze. Edrica miscarried that day, and died the next day, Valentine's Day, just two days short of her 22nd birthday.

The coroner's report attributes Edrica's death to toxic shock syndrome, prolonged retention of laminaria, and pregnancy. Which means that her death will likely be counted as a pregnancy death by health statisticians, but not as an abortion death because no abortion actually took place.

Edrica had been a student at Riverside Community College. Her mother said that she enjoyed traveling and reading. Her mother, Aletheia Meloncon, commented, "My daughter made a choice, but she didn't choose to die." She added, "A lost dog gets more attention than my daughter did. This has really torn at my family."

Edrica is the third known death among Planned Parenthood patients in California in the last four years. Holly Patterson, 18, died of an infection after an RU-486 abortion in 2003. Diana Lopez, 25, bled to death in 2002 after her cervix was punctured during the procedure. Edrica's mother's lawyer indicates that Planned Parenthood did not report any of these deaths to the state, as required by law.

State records indicate that the clinic in question was last inspected in July of 2003. The inspection found 12 deficiencies, most involving record keeping and documentation problems that were to be corrected by Sept. 20, 2003. The file doesn't show if the corrections were made or not.

Different Circumstances, Same Outcome

Contrary to the popular coathanger image, abortion-minded women have the capacity to look out for their own well being. In the days before legalization, they had sense enough to look for somebody with some sort of experience -- typically a physician.

But then, just as today, the fact that an abortion is being done by a physician doesn't mean that it won't cost the woman her life.

In early 1916, two women lay dying at Mercy Hospital in Denver. Police and doctors concluded that both women were suffering from abortions perpetrated by Dr. Bennett Graff at his offices at the Panama rooming house there in Denver, where he had his offices. Ruth Camp, whose abortion had been perpetrated on January 27, died on February 2. The second woman, 24-year-old Beulah Hatch, lingered until February 18. Ruth had come to Denver from Medicine Bow, Wyoming, on a visit. Her husband, a rancher, had wanted the baby. A friend of the family found out about Ruth's plans and sent him a telegraph. Mr. Camp had to drive 45 miles just to catch a train to Denver, arriving too late.

Graff insisted during the trial that a woman named Mrs. Fitch had called him to the boarding house, where he'd found Ruth ailing. He said Mrs. Fitch had accompanied him and Ruth to his office for an examination and "found that it was necessary to operate upon her, which he did." Had the jury believed his story they would have acquitted him. Graff was found guilty of murder in Ruth's death, and sentenced to 11 - 13 years in prison.

Though many women, as they lay dying, would protect other women by naming the abortionists who had fatally injured them, some took the secret to their graves. On February 2, 1926, Alberta Handy, a 38-year-old Black woman, died of a botched abortion in Chicago. The perpetrator was never caught. 

Even after legalization, abortions still can go wrong.

Elizabeth Tsuji, a 21-year-old Cal State student, underwent a safe and legal 8-week abortion at a local Planned Parenthood on November 11, 1977. She called the clinic in December to report that she was still not menstruating, but staff assured her that the abortion had been successful. On February 1, 1978, Elizabeth confirmed that she was indeed still pregnant, five months along. The Planned Parenthood clinic referred her to Inglewood General Hospitalnear Los Angeles for a saline abortion. That evening, she packed a nightgown and told her family she was going to spend the night at a friend's house. That was the last time they saw her alive.

Elizabeth underwent the abortion on February 2, and died that day. Two autopsies were performed, neither of which could find a definitive cause of the young woman's death. Abortionist Morton Barke was somehow involved, although documents aren't clear what his role was in her death. Barke also worked at the unsavory San Vicente Hospital. He is known to have been a partner at Inglewood and to have been involved in the deaths of Yvonne Tanner and Lynette Wallace. His involvement might have been that he served in a supervisory role. The other women who met their deaths at Inglewood include Kathy Murphy, Cora Lewis, and Belinda Byrd.