Saturday, April 11, 2026

April 11, 1984: Fatal Abortion by Doc Out on Bail

Abortionist Raymond E. Showery was out on bail appealing a murder conviction when he performed the safe, legal abortion that killed 28-year-old Mickey Jean Apodaca on April 11, 1984.

Mickey was a healthy young woman, about 5' 8" tall and 145 pounds. She had reddish blond hair and blue-green eyes. A divorced mother of four, she told her ex-husband, Gary, that she was pregnant around mid-March and asked for a loan to pay for the abortion. Gary said that she never discussed the details with him, nor why she had made the choice to abort this baby.

The couple had met when attending Ysleta High School. They had married in 1973 and divorced in 1980.

Mickey went to Showery's Southside Medical Center in El Paso on March 17 to look into arranging the abortion. The appointment was scheduled for April 11. The reason for the delay isn't mentioned.

Mickey arrived at 8:30 the day of the abortion. By that time, she was about 19 weeks pregnant. She wasn't brought back to the procedure room until 2 p.m. Showery spent 45 minutes to an hour performing the abortion. Typically a 19-week abortion would only take about 20 minutes.

During the abortion, Showery tore a 2 1/2 inch hole in Mickey's cervix and uterus and severed a uterine artery. However, Showery didn't detect the injury and sent Mickey to the recovery room. A nurse later noticed that Mickey was hemorrhaging. Showery took Mickey back to the procedure room and ordered a transfusion. He seemed to have attempted to treat the damage he had done; Mickey's uterus showed 4 sutures in place in the lower inch of the tear, but only about halfway through the cervix. The upper 1 1/2 inches of the tear were not sutured, nor was the torn artery. Mickey would have continued to hemorrhage internally. 

It wasn't until 5 pm, when Mickey had been bleeding uncontrollably for at least an hour, that anybody called an ambulance. The ambulance crew put MAST pants on the patient to compress her legs in an attempt to shunt as much blood as possible into the vital organs. She was transferred to Providence Memorial Hospital, where she died at around 9 p.m. during an emergency hysterectomy.

A grand jury handed down an indictment for involuntary manslaughter in Mickey's death. They determined that Showery had inadequately trained staff assisting him, had not properly repaired the hole he had torn in Mickey's uterus, and delayed transfer to a hospital.  

Otela Conn, who had been one of Mickey's neighbors for several years told the El Paso Herald Post, "She was such a sweet little girl. I really liked her. When she had [her youngest] baby, she was so happy and she was saying she thought she might like to have more. And she was good to those kids. She did the best she could for them. I just can't believe she'd have an abortion."

Showery was held pending $1 million dollars bail while awaiting trial in Mickey's death. While he was in prison, local pro-choicers rallied outside with signs asserting that Showery was "a good man" and that he "helps the poor." The fact that he helped Mickey Apodaca straight into an early grave was lost on them.

The charges relating to Mickey's death were dropped in 1987, though Showery remained incarcerated, serving a 15-year sentence for the murder of the baby.

Watch Mickey's Misplaced Trust on YouTube.

Sources:
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April 11, 1991: Scant information on New Jersey death

At 3:05 pm on April 6 of 1991, police in Union City, New Jersey got a call from a nurse at a doctor's office in the 1100 block of Summit Avenue in Union City, New Jersey. She said that an unconscious patient and the doctor had already left the facility. 

First responders arrived to take the 34-year-old woman, "Terri," who had just undergone an abortion, to St. Mary Hospital in Hoboken. 

Terri was placed on life support but died at 1:57 on the morning of April 11 without ever regaining consciousness. 

Watch Another Dying Abortion Patient Abandoned on YouTube.
Watch Another Dying Abortion Patient Abandoned on Rumble.

Source: Hudson (NJ) Dispatch, The Jersey Journal, May 10, 1991

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Friday, April 10, 2026

April 10, 1924: Mystery Death in Wyoming

All I originally had was a single card to commemorate the April 10, 1924 death of 34-year-old Mrs. Katherina Mueller. She died in Rock Springs, Sweetwater County, Wyoming of septicemia following a self-induced abortion.

I have since obtained Katherina's death certificate. Her doctor had cared for her from April 2 through April 9. She died at 5:00 the following morning.

There is no record of why Katherina chose to abort her baby, what resources would have been available to her, or what advice she could have obtained from family or friends. I've been unable to find evidence of abortion rings in Wyoming at the time of her death. It's unknown if she asked a doctor to falsely claim that the pregnancy was life-threatening in order to perform an abortion under false pretenses. However, even had she found a physician, the lack of available antibiotics at the time would have made it difficult to save her once an infection started regardless of who had perpetrated the abortion. 

Watch Just One Card on YouTube
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Thursday, April 09, 2026

April 9, 1935: Newlywed Joins Ranks of Dr. Brewer's Dead

SUMMARY AND CONTEXT: Wanda Gray, age 20, died on April 9, 1935 after an abortion perpetrated by a prolific abortionist named Dr. Guy E. Brewer. This story highlights a seldom-addressed reality: Most pre-legalization abortions were perpetrated physicians or trained medical professionals, not the woman or some amateur. 

Mary Calderone

As then-Planned Parenthood Federation medical director Mary Calderone estimated in the July, 1960 American Journal of Public Health, "90 per cent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians." Another researcher, Nancy Howell Lee, estimated in The Search for an Abortionist (1969) that 89% of illegal abortions were being done by physicians. These estimates are the result of independent research. Calderone was basing her estimates on Planned Parenthood's 1955 conference "Abortion in America," in which physicians, public health officials, and even one criminal abortionist worked together to draw as accurate picture as possible. Lee based her estimates on an extensive survey of women who had sought out abortions prior to legalization.

One of those physician-abortionists was Dr. Guy E. Brewer.

The Philanthropic Dr. Brewer

Newspaper clipping of a bald, middle-aged white man wearing round black spectacles, in 3/4 profile and with a grim facial expression
Dr. Guy E. Brewer

Brewer had graduated from the University of Louisville in 1906 and had been practicing medicine in Garber, Oklahoma for 21 of the 29 years he had been a physician. He supported young men during their university studies, maintaining houses for them to live in and paying for their tuition and other expenses.

Though Brewer had spent many long years helping boys and young men, his impact on women's lives was evidently lightning-fast.

On June 7, 1935, Brewer pleaded guilty to six counts of manslaughter for the deaths of six women who died from complications of abortions he had perpetrated. He made these please ostensibly to avoid putting those who cared about him through the embarrassment of a public trial on such distasteful charges. One particular statement by Brewer is very telling:

"I could not stand to have my boys brought into this case and I would not betray the trust so many people have placed in me by having them harassed, and in some instances their lives ruined by the notoriety a trial would bring to them."

This implies that a lot of those abortions were done at the behest of Brewer's "boys," who would themselves face serious charges for arranging the fatal abortions on women they had impregnated. Those "boys" offered support to Brewer from all corners of the globe, where they had work they attributed to Brewer's support in getting their educations.

Habitually Deadly Abortionist

The first of the women known to have died at Brewer's hands was 23-year-old Elizabeth Shaw, who died om May 25, 1928. Next was 21-year-old Myrtle Helen Rose, of Ponca City, Oklahoma, who died on December 23, 1931. Ruby Ford,  a 26-year-old homemaker, died April 1, 1934. Hermoine Fowler, a 20-year-old coed, died June 27, 1934. 

The next to die was Wanda Lee Gray, age 20, who died April 9, 1935 at the home of her parents, Lewis and Effie May Wickline, in Enid, Oklahoma. She left behind her husband, Robert George Gray, two brothers, and two sisters. She was a 1933 graduate of Enid High School. She and Robert were newlyweds, having only married the 30th of the previous July. They had honeymooned in Chicago to visit the World's Fair, traveled in Michigan and Minnesota, then returned to set up house on a farm southwest of Kremlin, Oklahoma.

Wanda had not even been buried yet when an abortion at Brewer's hands ended the life of Doris Jones, a 20-year-old mother of two, who died April 11, 1935. 

A Slap on the Wrist

The county attorney who arranged the plea bargain, Holbird, didn't seem to think that Brewer had done much harm. "In accepting Dr. Brewer's plea of guilty in these abortion deaths I do so with the feeling that the law has collected its debt. The matter of the penalty assessed is unimportant. The thing that counts is that these crimes have been exposed to the world, and the people can now realize the serious danger and hazard to life in this kind of operation." 

Thus came Brewer's  six four-year sentences, to run concurrently, for all six abortion deaths. The likely reason that he got such a light sentence was his extreme popularity for his benevolence in putting local young men through college. So beloved was Brewer that one victim's husband was fired in retaliation for reporting his wife's death to the police.

Governor E. W. Marland, however, was not exactly delighted with the wrist-slap administered by local officials. "This is the worst case I ever heard of," the governor said, "He was, in my opinion, guilty of mortal turpitude of character almost as serious as that resulting in the death of these women." Noting that Brewer would be eligible for parole after serving only 28 months, the governor urged an investigation which he was certain would uncover more crimes so that additional charges could be brought so that Brewer would end up serving a sentence commensurate with the harm he had done. 

In the end, Brewer's supporters triumphed. The young men prospered, the young women lay dead in their graves.

Watch One of Six Victims on YouTube.

Context in Closing: 

The idea that legalizing abortion magically eliminated tragic deaths is false. The major decline in maternal mortality — including deaths from illegal abortion — occurred decades before Roe v. Wade (1973), driven primarily by sulfa drugs (1930s), penicillin and other antibiotics (1940s), improved blood transfusions, and advances in obstetric care. Legalization simply shifted many abortions from one set of physicians to another. In some cases it led those "back alley" physicians to move onto main street and start killing women with a carelessness they never would have dared before legalization, as exemplified by Milan Vuitch, Jesse Ketchum, and Benjamin Munson. All three had no criminal abortions deaths to their discredit but each went on to kill two patients with appalling malpractice after legalization. Legalization did not eliminate the human cost or the incentives for providers to cut corners. Claims of dramatically improved “safety” still rest on voluntary self-reporting from the facilities and physicians performing the procedures, a system with documented cases of falsified records and gaps in accountability.



Source:
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April 9, 1977: Fatal Screwup in a Teaching Hospital

A 26-year-old married black woman went to Medical College of Virginia's north teaching hospital for a safe and legal abortion around the middle of March, 1977. Because her family never went public with her abortion death, I will give her the pseudonym "Janice Mills."

Janice had already led a difficult life. She had married a 20-year-old man in 1965, when she was only 14 years old. She was working as a domestic servant when she opted to abort her 19-week baby.

The doctor chose the prostaglandin abortion method, which involved injecting prostaglandin F2 Alpha into her uterus. This would cause intense contractions to expel the baby. The contractions were more than three times stronger than the contractions of normal labor -- so intense that they would usually kill the baby. On some occasions, they were intense enough to decapitate the baby, tear the mother's cervix off as the baby was pushed against it, or cause the uterus to rupture entirely. This would happen because the powerful contractions would come on rapidly, within 10 to 15 minutes, not leaving adequate time for the cervix to soften.

Keep this in mind as we look at what JM's doctor decided to so. 

Grok AI illustration
The doctor to whom Janice entrusted her life administered the first dose of 40 mg of the prostaglandin. Five minutes after the first dose, he or she decided to administer a second dose because JM's contractions were inadequate. It's unclear if the judgement was that they were inadequate to expel the baby or inadequate to cause fetal death.

About five minutes after the second dose, Janice reported severe headache and chest pain and difficulty breathing. Five minutes later she suffered a grand mal seizure and went into cardiac arrest.

Hospital staff were able to resuscitate Janice , but she had already suffered brain damage due to the oxygen deprivation. She was transferred to the intensive care unit, where she remained comatose. However, though JM's brain had been severely damaged, her uterus had not. The contractions continued and she expelled the dead baby 36 hours later. 

Janice lingered for three weeks until her death on April 9. Her autopsy found swelling due to excessive fluid in her brain and lungs. Her official cause of death was "anoxic encephalopathy secondary to cardiac arrest induced by prostaglandin F2α."

In addition to her husband and parents, JM left behind a daughter and son along with numerous other family members. 

Janice's death, as well as that of another women, were written up in a medical journal article in which the authors noted that the prostaglandin used in abortions, rapidly spreading through a woman's body, could cause heart spasms, excessive blood pressure in the lungs, and low blood oxygen. They noted that the doctor's decision to administer a second dose within five minutes bypassed safety margins and caused the levels of prostaglandin in Janice's blood to spike. She had also not been administered antiemetics or bronchodilators prior to the abortion, which would have reduced the risk of these complications. Janice was also not being adequately monitored during the procedure.

Sources:


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Wednesday, April 08, 2026

April 8, 1928: Woman Collapses at Work, Dies from Criminal Abortion

On April 8, 1928, 26-year-old clerk Mildred Jakobsen, a Chicago native and daughter of Norwegian immigrants, "took sick" at work. She died there before she could be taken to a hospital. 

On May 4, the Cook County coroner concluded that Mildred had died from complications of a criminal abortion, and recommended the identification and arrest of the person or persons responsible. 

Nobody was ever held accountable for Mildred's death, according to the Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database.

It's likely that she availed herself of one of the many doctors or midwives who advertised abortions in Chicago newspapers, using thinly -veiled language such as "female complaints," "private treatments for women," or "relief for delayed periods." 

Watch Woman Collapses and Dies at Work on YouTube.

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Tuesday, April 07, 2026

April 7, 1940: Self-Induced in Wyoming

According to her death certificate, 34-year-old Inez Harpham, wife of George Harphan, lived in Rowlins, Carbon County, Wyoming and worked as a housekeeper. She was born in Lyons, Colorado in 1906.

On April 4, 1940 she was admitted to Carbon County Memorial Hospital. She was treated there by Dr. Myron L. Crandall until her death shortly after midnight the morning of April 7.

Her death was attributed to self-induced abortion with infection. She had been about 6 weeks pregnant. 

There is no record of why Inez chose to abort her baby, what resources would have been available to her, or what advice she could have obtained from family or friends. I've been unable to find evidence of abortion rings in Wyoming at the time of Inez's death. It's unknown if she asked a doctor to falsely claim that the pregnancy was life-threatening in order to perform an abortion under false pretenses. However, even had she found a physician, the lack of available antibiotics at the time would have made it difficult to save her once an infection started regardless of who had perpetrated the abortion. 

Watch Self-Induced in Wyoming on YouTube.
Watch Self-Induced in Wyoming on Rumble.

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April 7, 1896: A Cry in the Night

On the evening of Monday, April 6, 1896, Tillie Karcher heard moaning in the flat of seamstress Millie Meyers, just upstairs of her at 415 Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn. She listened again and heard a young female voice crying out, "Oh, let me go home to my mama!"

Alarmed, Mrs. Karchner sought out a policeman on his rounds, who went to the apartment and found a young woman there, ailing and alone. The girl gave her name as Mrs. Emily Scott and said that her husband, Ollie Scott, was a fireman on a Fulton ferry.

The policeman found prescription bottles in the room, so he copied the information from them and went to the pharmacy that had prepared them. The pharmacist said that the medicines were common ones used in treating fevers.

The policeman considered all these goings-on to be fishy, so he reported the situation to the precinct captain, who began an investigation to identify and round up everybody involved in the young woman's suspicious illness.

Around 5:30 on Tuesday afternoon, April 7, the young woman said that she was going to die soon, told the police that her real name was Emily Binney and gave them her address on Rutledge Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Emily's turn for the worse sent the police rushing for the coroner, leaving the ailing girl in the care of Minnie Meyer. The coroner arrived to find that Miss Meyer had abandoned Emily, leaving her to die alone in the intervening half hour.

Meyer was eventually apprehended and admitted that she'd helped 20-year-old Emily to seek out the abortion services of 33-year-old midwife Mary Schott and had herself been engaged to look after the patient.

A police officer went to the Fulton ferry house and managed to identify "Ollie Scott" as Arthur Robbins, who was arrested when he showed up at Meyer's flat to look for Emily at 10:00 that evening.

While the suspects were being questioned, Minnie said that Emily's baby had been born alive on March 21. Upon hearing that, Robbins burst into tears and told police that about four hours after the child's birth he had wrapped the baby in newspapers weighted down with a piece of iron and thrown it out a porthole in the ferry. He couldn't say if the baby had still been alive when it was tossed into the river.

Arthur Robbins then admitted that he had gone with Emily and Minnie to arrange for Mrs. Schott to perform an abortion.

Minnie Meyer was found guilty of manslaughter. I've been unable to determine the outcome of the case against the midwife.

Watch A Cry in the Night on YouTube.

Sources:

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Monday, April 06, 2026

April 6, 1880: Body Dumped After Fatal Abortion

SUMMARY AND CONTEXT: Anna Clemens, age 26, died April 6, 1880 after an abortion perpetrated in or near Detroit, reportedly by Dr. William G. Cox. This story highlights a seldom-addressed reality: Most pre-legalization abortions were perpetrated physicians or trained medical professionals, not the woman or some amateur. 

Mary Calderone

As then-Planned Parenthood Federation medical director Mary Calderone estimated in the July, 1960 American Journal of Public Health, "90 per cent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians." Another researcher, Nancy Howell Lee, estimated in The Search for an Abortionist (1969) that 89% of illegal abortions were being done by physicians. These estimates are the result of independent research. Calderone was basing her estimates on Planned Parenthood's 1955 conference "Abortion in America," in which physicians, public health officials, and even one criminal abortionist worked together to draw as accurate picture as possible. Lee based her estimates on an extensive survey of women who had sought out abortions prior to legalization.

A Grisly Discovery

On April 7, 1880, a woman's bloody cloak, with clumps of hair clinging to it, was found hanging from a spike protruding from a bridge over the River Rough, just south of the Village of Delray, Michigan, near Detroit.

After two days of dragging the river, the body of a woman was found. She was dressed in black, bound and gagged. A stone had been tied to the clothesline which had been used to tie her hands behind her back.

The Body Identified

Grok AI illustration

From a description of the dead woman in the newspaper, Mr. Clemens suspected that she was his sister, 26-year-old Annie M. Clemens of Bay City, Michigan. Anna, a housekeeper, had last been seen alive in Detroit on April 2.

Mr. Clemens, accompanied by unidentified "companions," went to Detroit, where the police took him to the undertaker's parlor where the body was being kept. He had brought "a piece of the dress worn by his sister on the day of her departure" to Norris, in Wayne County, on March 31. She had left home "in excellent spirits" and good health.

He was shown a skirt and garters that the undertaker had removed from the body and identified them as belonging to his sister. Clemens and his companions were then shown the face of the dead woman, and though her face was "greatly swollen and discolored" they were able to identify her as Anna. He also noted that the dead woman had the same gold fillings in her teeth that Anna had had. He showed police a photograph of Anna and they concurred on the identification.

An Abortion Uncovered

Mr. Clemens told police that Anna had been engaged to marry Thomas Merritt, who ran the G.D. Edwards & Co. clothing business. They'd been keeping company for about four years.

"The dead girl was considered chaste and modest, and she was never mixed up in any scandal or sensation. the theory is that, having stooped to folly, and being upon the eve of childbirth, she counseled with her seducer, whoever he was, and it was decided that she should come to Detroit" for an abortion which had proved fatal, resulting in her death on April 6.

The Supposed Abortionist Identified

An investigation revealed the suspected abortionist to be Dr. William G. Cox, who had a drug store at the corner of Cass and Grand River in Detroit. Henry w. Weaver, "an aged furniture repairer," was also arrested, charged with disposing of Anna's body. Mrs. Hattie Snyder, who owned the house where police concluded that the abortion had been perpetrated, "suddenly turned up missing" but was later located and arraigned.

The Trial

On July 4, 1880, after deliberating for only one hour, the jury reached a verdict of not guilty. His accomplice was not tried. The Detroit Free Press expressed outrage on behalf of the community:

Her Inhmanman Murderer Must be Hunted Down and Brought to Justice.
The People of the Community Will Not be Satisfied With Less.
And They Will Second the Agents of the Law to the Last Extremity.
THIS NOTORIOUS IMPUNITY OF ABORTIONISTS MUST COME TO AN END.

A little less than two years later, Cox was arrested for the abortion death of Martha Whitla.

Context in Closing: 

The idea that legalizing abortion magically eliminated tragic deaths is false. The major decline in maternal mortality — including deaths from illegal abortion — occurred decades before Roe v. Wade (1973), driven primarily by sulfa drugs (1930s), penicillin and other antibiotics (1940s), improved blood transfusions, and advances in obstetric care. Legalization simply shifted many abortions from one set of physicians to another. In some cases it led those "back alley" physicians to move onto main street and start killing women with a carelessness they never would have dared before legalization, as exemplified by Milan Vuitch, Jesse Ketchum, and Benjamin Munson. All three had no criminal abortions deaths to their discredit but each went on to kill two patients with appalling malpractice after legalization. Legalization did not eliminate the human cost or the incentives for providers to cut corners. Claims of dramatically improved “safety” still rest on voluntary self-reporting from the facilities and physicians performing the procedures, a system with documented cases of falsified records and gaps in accountability.



Sources:


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April 6, 1906: Malpractice Prompts Midwife's Suicide Attempt

SUMMARY: On April 6, 1906, 22-year-old homemaker Bessie Braun died in Chicago from an abortion perpetrated by midwife Julia Gibson.

Michael Reese Hospital

The Wards at Michael Reese Hospital

Were there really wards full of women dying from botched septic abortions in the days before legalization? Dr. Julius Lackner of Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago reflected on what he saw there from 1900 to 1914. Five hundred women were treated at this charity hospital for septic abortions — both criminal abortions and miscarriages — during those fifteen years. Of those 500 women, there were only four deaths. This remarkable accomplishment predates antibiotics and blood transfusions.

I have verified that two of them were indeed criminal abortion patients: Lizzie Orenstein and Bessie Braun.

Bessie's Death

Bessie, a 22-year-old homemaker, mother of two, and immigrant from Austria, died at Michael Reese on April 6, 1906. Both verbally and in writing, Bessie named midwife Julia Gibson as the person who had perpetrated the abortion, for a $5 fee, on March 20. It was hardly surprising that Bessie’s abortion had been perpetrated by somebody with medical training, since the majority of Chicago abortions in that era were done by either doctors or midwives, who ran thinly veiled advertisements in the newspapers.

Bessie’s husband, Abraham, testified at the inquest. He said that he had not known anything about an abortion until Bessie became seriously ill on Sunday, though she remained at home until Thursday, when she finally was hospitalized.

He also said that prior to her death, Bessie told him that she had written the guilty midwife’s name and address on a piece of paper which was in the bed at their home. Abraham found the paper and turned it over to authorities during the inquest.

Attempted Suicide

Gibson, who had been at Bessie’s bedside during the declaration, was being escorted out of the hospital by police when she asked to go to the women’s dressing room in the hospital basement. She was permitted to go in while a police officer stood guard outside the door.

The officer soon heard a shot, then forced the door and found Gibson lying on the floor suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. She was admitted to the hospital for treatment and was kept both under arrest and under suicide watch. As she lay near death, Gibson confessed her guilt. She later recovered.

Not Her First Dead Patient

Gibson had previously been indicted for the November, 1905 abortion death of 18-year-old Dorothy Spuhr, who had died at County Hospital.

Watch Midwife Attempts Suicide, Admits Guilt on YouTube.

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April 6, 1977: Happy Birthday, Gianna Jessen!

On April 5, 1977, a 17-year-old girl entered a Los Angeles Planned Parenthood. Though she was just a few days shy of 30 weeks pregnant, she wanted the viable baby in her womb to emerge dead, not alive. Thus, this unnamed teen chose to submit to a risky saline abortion.

In a saline abortion, the abortionist uses an amniocentesis syringe to remove as much amniotic fluid as possible, then replace it with a strong sterile saline solution. The unborn child breathes and swallows this caustic fluid. It gets in the child's eyes. It eats away at the child's internal organs and the child's skin. The baby might bleed to death internally or die from the injuries the high saline levels cause to her internal organs. 

Sometimes the saline gets into the mother's bloodstream and she dies along with her baby.

This was a girl who very much wanted her unborn baby dead.

As planned, the teen went into labor. But the plans went awry 18 hours after the saline was injected. The baby, a red and scalded little girl came out alive at 6:00 the following morning.

The abortionist hadn't arrived at work yet, so he wasn't there to remind everybody that abortions must always result in a dead baby, even if death needs to be achieved after the baby emerges. A nurse called 911. The baby was transported to a hospital.

That baby was Gianna Jessen. 

Gianna Jessen

Due to the saline, Gianna had suffered brain damage during the abortion. She spent 3 months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit before going into the care of a foster family specializing in high-risk babies. She was eventually adopted by her foster mother's daughter. 

The brain damage from the abortion had left Gianna with cerebral palsy (CP). She often asked her mother why she had CP but wouldn't get a clear answer. Finally, at the age of 12, Gianna replied to one of the vague answers with, "I was aborted, wasn't I?"

That's when she learned the truth. 

Two years later, Gianna went public with her story to a group of only 10 people at a Mexican restaurant. One of those people was a reporter for the Orange County Register. The paper published the story, and Gianna has been speaking about her story ever since.

Happy 49th Birthday, Gianna.

Watch Slated for Death. Speaking for Life. on YouTube.
Watch Slated for Death. Speaking for Life. on Rumble.

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Sunday, April 05, 2026

April 5, 2001: Haley's Post-Abortion Journey Ends Tragically

 Dear Lord,

I sit here alone with my thoughts wondering if you will ever forgive me. Why do I continue to fail you? I'm failing you because I‘m turning away from the precious gift of having a child. A child. A breathing, living, beautiful life that I created but too selfish to accept from you. Will you still love me as a child of yours? Will I still love me after today?

Haley‘s journal - Oct. 23, 2000


On April 5, 2001, Donetta Robben‘s 22-year-old niece didn't show up for work. Her friend Rosa drove over to check on her, and her car wasn't there. Rosa called the girl‘s father, Edwin. Had she gone home to visit her family?

Edwin later said he just knew that his daughter was dead. He called the Omaha police, and he called his daughter's landlord. They went to the apartment. They found her body.

Though the coroner estimated that the young woman had been dead for several days, all official documents, and the young woman‘s tombstone, use the April 5th date. So will I.

In telling her niece's story, Donetta decided to use the name ‘Haley Mason‘ rather than her niece‘s real name. In respect for the family‘s desire to grieve privately, I‘m using the name Donetta uses. Likewise, I use the pseudonyms Donetta uses for friends and family members.

The official ruling was that Haley‘s death was an accidental overdose. Her family was stunned as the investigators spoke with them, revealing the discoveries made while looking into the young woman‘s death. Isolated words echoed in their minds: death, journals, death, pills, death, drinking, death, hurt, death, abortion...


Abortion?

Abortion.

The answers to how Haley went from happy-go-lucky college student to suicide statistic weren't in the official reports. They were found in Haley‘s journals, where she poured her heart out in the final months of her life.

The story of how Haley died begins when she fell in love with Todd. She found out she was pregnant and told him. He wanted her to get an abortion.

A two story building. The bottom story is brick, with dark brickwork depicting an old jalopy. A huge business sign points to stairs beside the building.
LeRoy Carhart's clinic in Belleview, Nebraska
Haley was a student at the University of Nebraska. She worked two jobs to meet her expenses. Unmarried, without much money, and with a disapproving boyfriend, Haley saw abortion as her only option. She made her appointment at the Bellevue, Nebraska practice of  Dr. Leroy Carhart. It was late October of 2000.

Haley wrote of Todd‘s attitude: "I must let him abandon me. He doesn't care about me. I know he‘s only agreed to pay for it to ease his own guilt."

Haley found the abortion stressful: the wait, the sounds, the crude and uncaring behavior of the doctor. Haley had been told to arrive at the clinic at 7:00 in the morning, but it was ten hours before she was finally on the table, ready for the abortion. Carhart walked into the room, clad in a dirty coat and glasses so smeared that Haley‘s friend, who had accompanied her, wondered how he could even see through the lenses.

Candid outdoor shot of an overweight middle-aged man with his hair going white in the front. He is wearing a suit and tie.Haley, in her fog of medication, tried to make a joke. "Don‘t hurt me down there?" she said. 

"Be still and I won‘t," Carhart replied.

While performing the vacuum abortion, Carhart spouted profanities. He told Haley and her friend that he was tired. He‘d been speaking in California the day before, and had just flown into Omaha that morning.

After the abortion, Haley felt violated, as if she‘d been raped. She also experienced continued spotting into January. She'd not been given a follow-up appointment, and didn't know if the bleeding was normal or not. She didn't want to go to another doctor, because she‘d have to tell him about the abortion, and that was just too painful to talk about. The bleeding was a constant reminder of the death of her unborn baby.

Haley told few people about the abortion: three close friends and two relatives. But she didn't tell them of her struggle to cope with the emotional pain. She kept telling herself that she‘d done the best thing. But she started punishing herself, and pushed away anybody who tried to love her. She didn't feel that she deserved their love.

Haley longed for a knight in shining armor to rescue her from the prison of her grief, but she no longer felt comfortable with men. She had to get drunk to be able to endure sex. And even then, it reminded her of the abortion. Todd came by at early hours, looking for sex. Haley submitted, but her heart wasn't in it. She no longer felt loved. She felt used.

The drinking got worse. Hot baths and quick jogs provided temporary relief from the anguish, but it always returned.

Finally, Haley could stand it no more.

First, she drank plenty of numbing alcohol. Then, she went into her living room and grabbed a precious photo of her late mother and maternal grandfather. Next, a bottle of vodka. A bottle of aspirin. An old prescription bottle of Benadryl. Haley washed the drugs down with the vodka, leaving the three bottles next to the photograph.

She went into the bedroom. She put her rosary around her neck. She set an empty holy water bottle on her dresser. She opened her journal to the day of the abortion. She lay down, head on her pillow, looking for the  rest she couldn't find any more in living, leaving her family to sort out their own pain. 

Other post-abortion suicides include:
  • Carol Cunningham, age 21, who shut herself in her garage, ran her car, and died from the exhaust fumes in August of 1986
  • Arlin della Cruz, age 19, who hanged herself in the woods near her house in October of 1992
  • Laura Grunas, age 30, who shot her baby’s father and then herself in August of 2006
  • “Sandra Roe,” age 18, who killed herself using an unidentified means in April of 1971
  • Sandra Kaiser, age 15, who threw herself off an overpass into traffic in November of 1984
  • Stacy Zallie, age 20, who committed suicide in October of 2002
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