Before her death at Illinois Masonic Hospital on February 17, 1929, Mrs. Gladys Schaeffer said that a midwife named Emma Schulz had performed an abortion on her on February 12.
Gladys was a married woman, 23 years old.
When police went to arrest Schulz, she took poison in a suicide attempt. Police took her to Belmont Hospital.
According to Grok, Schulz survived and the case was dropped.
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Lisa Kristine Bardsley was a vibrant and active young woman, 26 years old and 20.6 weeks pregnant on February 16, 1995. She had been an honor roll student and was a 1986 graduate of Flagstaff High in Flagstaff, Arizona. 
Lisa Bardsley
She traveled from her home in Flagstaff to A to Z Women's Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona. There she was to undergo an abortion at the hands of Dr. John Biskind.
Biskind and his Clinic
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| Dr. John Biskind |
The medical board found out about the woman's nearly-fatal experience when the hospital filed a complaint about the clinic's owner, Dr. Moshe Hachamovitch, who was implicated in the abortion deaths of Christina Goesswein, Tanya Williamson, and Luz Rodriguez, and owned the clinic where Jammie Garcia underwent her fatal abortion.
In a six-month period, the ER had treated four of the Biskind's patients, leading hospital staff to be concerned about the care women were receiving.
The medical board, on the other hand, didn't seem particularly concerned and took no action.
Lisa's Experience at the Clinic
Dr. John Biskind documented that he inserted 5 laminaria to dilate Lisa's cervix. The preprinted consent form that Lisa signed stated that she would stay within 5 miles/15 minutes from the facility, and a handwritten note on the page added, "Patient stated during counseling that she will stay overnight in Phoenix - within 15 minutes of the clinic. Joy K. Noll."
You read that right. Biskind, like others who do abortions late in the pregnancy, endangered his patients by just sending them out the door under their own fragile care, or the care of a loved one, when it's not safe for them to be more than 15 minutes away.
The undated preprinted surgical procedure report did not note how much cervical dilation Biskind had achieved for his patient. It does note that she entered the OR at 10:33 am, was administered a selection of drugs at 10:26 and more drugs at 10:47, and taken to the recovery room at 11:00, still unconscious.
It's interesting that the pre-printed operative report is not specific to this patient but merely says "Uterine contents consisted of placental tissue and products of conception. .... The patient tolerated the procedure well and left the operating room for recovery in good condition."
Just half an hour later, at 11:00, Lisa was discharged from the facility even though her blood pressure and pulse had fallen since she'd entered the recovery room. Biskind felt no need to medically clear his patient before sending her home even though a woman had very nearly died just a few years earlier. "My experience has given me the ability to feel secure. I used to see all second tri patients, but it just wasn't necessary," he later told the medical board.
There are no indications of whether Lisa was told to stay near the facility after the abortion procedure itself. The instructions just noted that she was to stay near the facility for the dilation prior to the procedure.
She Never Made it Home
Lisa and her boyfriend didn't feel they could afford a hotel in Phoenix, so they decided to go home to Flagstaff. On the way, she took ill, so the couple stopped at a motel at Camp Verde. Lisa hoped that if she rested a while she'd feel better. However, her pain worsened and she began suffering shortness of breath. Her boyfriend called 911.
Lisa was taken to a hospital in Cottonwood, where she was pronounced dead at 4:55 pm on February 17. An autopsy found an 8 cm (over 3 inch) laceration of her uterus and about 2000 cc (over half a gallon) of blood in her abdomen. Her cause of death was listed as intra-abdominal hemorrhage secondary to perforation of the uterus secondary to pregnancy termination.
A Grieving Father
Lisa's father, Curtis "Skip" Bardsley, told the Arizona Daily Sun, "I can't tell you how many times I thought about going to Phoenix and just doing this guy." But he would think of his other children and pursue justice through the medical board and the courts. He even moved from his home in California to Flagstaff. He settled his lawsuit against Biskind for an undisclosed amount and tried to get the medical board to take action.
"I couldn't take it. I had to be here for this thing. It took three years to get anything done at all to this guy." Skip sat in on the medical board proceedings as an observer. All that happened, however, was that Biskind was censured. No steps were taken to protect women. Biskind told the medical board that he'd told Lisa not to leave the area for 48 hours so it was her own fault she'd bled to death from the 3-inch hole he'd torn in her uterus.
Another Woman Dies Needlessly
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| Lou Ann Herron |
Three years later, 33-year-old Lou Ann Herron made the mistake of trusting Biskind with her life. Like Lisa, Lou Ann suffered a tear in her uterus. As with Lisa, Biskind paid no attention to signs that his patient was hemorrhaging. In fact, he left the clinic and entrusted Lou Ann to the supervision of some medical assistants. The staff mopped her blood off the floor as her life drained away. By the time anybody called medics to take her across the street to the hospital, it was too late to save her.
Skip followed Biskind's prosecution for Lou Ann's death as well and asked the judge to sentence the abortionist to the maximum sentence.
Lou Ann's father also sued the medical board for letting Biskind get away with what he'd done to Lisa. The suit alleged that the board had prepared its "finding of facts and law" before even holding a hearing.
Final Words from Lisa's Father
Lisa had worked as a canyoneer and rancher at Phantom Ranch, where she did cooking, cleaning, greeting guests, and performing odd jobs.
Skip Bardsley told the Arizona Daily Sun that he had Lisa's remains cremated. "I took her down to the Grand Canyon and spread her because that's where she worked, and she loved that place. I'm going down to the Grand Canyon tomorrow. I hike down every year at her birthday and celebrate it with her."
Watch The Medical Board Could Have Stopped Him on YouTube.
Watch The Medical Board Could Have Stopped Him on Rumble.
Sources:
Hawaii was one of the first states to legalize abortion essentially on demand. While a handful of medical safeguards prevented it from becoming a destination for “abortion tourism” like New York or California, they weren’t enough to save an unidentified woman in 1971.
“Coral” was a resident of Hawaii. State regulations required that prospective abortion clients live in Hawaii for at least 90 days before. This would ensure that the client would be able to return to facility or hospital to receive care in the event of complications. (If other states such as New York or California had implemented a similar policy, it could have saved the lives of many, including but not limited to Lisa Marie Hoefener, Denise Holmes and Kathryn Strong.) In addition, abortions past “viability” were still banned except for health exemptions, minors required the knowledge and consent of a guardian, and hospitals were free to set their own regulations to further protect the health of their clients.
Unfortunately, these protective regulations were not enough to save Coral. She underwent a “safe and legal” hypertonic saline abortion. This method was highly dangerous; one hospital reported a 32.7% rate of serious complications among their saline abortion clients. (It is not specified if it was the same hospital where Coral underwent her fatal abortion.)
In addition to mortality and morbidity of abortion clients, another negative effect of legalization was documented: the psychological effects on hospital staff, particularly nurses, amounted to “an unexpected crisis in patient care.” A study compiled interviews with nurses involved in abortions or in the care of post-abortive women and found that every single one of them “suffered from strong emotional reactions” such as anxiety, depression and even identity crisis— including those who had initially supported the legalization before it was actually implemented. It was concluded that conscience protections for these workers were crucial; "The option of not working on abortion cases must be kept open."
A Preliminary Report: Abortion in Hawaii—— Present and Future Trends
SUMMARY: Marie Benzing, age 28, died February 17, 1917 after an abortion perpetrated in Chicago by Dr. Helen Dugdale.
On February 17, 1917, 28-year-old homemaker Marie Benzing died at Chicago Union Hospital from septicemia caused by an abortion perpetrated that day by Dr. Helen Dugdale. Dugdale was arrested on February 18 and indicted by a Grand jury on March 15, but the case never went to trial. She was alter arrested for the 1918 death of Gertrude Harrington.
Dugdale's husband, George B. Dugdale, owned a notorious saloon, the New Delaware, that was dubbed by locals the Bucket of Blood, inspired, it is believed, by another tavern at the corner of 19th and Federal:
"This predecessor is described as follows on the Chicago Crime Scene Project: "Across Federal Street from the Bucket of Blood was the cheapest group of brothels in the city, affectionately known as 'Bed Bug Row,' which operated until 1913. A woman could be had there for $0.25, and there were also peep shows, torture chambers, and drug dens where heroin and morphine could be purchased openly (neither was illegal until the 1910s)."
Whether Dugdale chose to become an abortionist because of the ready business of the prostitutes, or whether she moved into the area in order to be the handiest abortionist for the prostitutes, of course, would only have been known to her.
Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.
In fact, due to improvements in addressing these problems, maternal mortality in general (and abortion mortality with it) fell dramatically in the 20th Century, decades before Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion across America.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
Source: Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database
The testimony Edwin (or Edward) G. Noah gave to the Allegheny County coroner's jury did little to clarify the circumstances surrounding the death of his 34-year-old wife, Helen B. Noah.
According to public record, Helen and Edwin had married in November of 1904 when Edwin was working as a messenger. Helen was the second of 11 children born to Edward and Ethel Bell Ferris. One of Helen's sisters, 3-year-old Mary, died when Helen was 10. Her father died the year Helen and Edwin married.
Edwin told the coroner's jury that Helen said she'd been “flooding” on Sunday, December 14, 1917 and had gone to Dr. W. J. Connelly, who had prescribed medicine for her. She'd gone back again later and been told that she had “inflammation of the womb.”
On February 3, Edwin said, Helen had informed him “that her monthly had just appeared and she had used a catheter to see if they would not appear.”
On February 5, she took to her bed. Dr. Connelly came to check on her, and she told him about the catheter. He continued to care for her, finally summoning an ambulance and admitting her to Pittsburgh's Presbyterian Hospital on February 9. There she was treated for massive infection until her death at 2:58 p.m. On February 16. She left behind five children, ranging in age from 3 to 12 years of age. Public records don't show that Edwin, working as a paperhanger at the time of his wife's death, ever remarried.
Evidently the coroner's jury was able to make enough sense of Mr. Noah's testimony to conclude that Helen, a homemaker, had died of “Puerperal Septicemia Following Self Inflicted Abortion.”
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In February of 1929, Ruth Weir, age 25, of East Orange, New Jersey, lay dying at Orange Memorial Hospital of sepsis contracted through a criminal abortion that had been perpetrated a month earlier. Hospital officials reported the situation to authorities, who came to her bedside and took a deathbed statement in which she implicated Dr. Maurice Sturm.
Dr. James R. Chamberlain testified that he had examined Ruth at her home and had admitted her to the hospital due to a septic condition. Dr. James Wilson testified that he had treated Ruth in the hospital during late January and that she was suffering from septicemia.
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| Dr. Emil Gleitsmann |
Dr. Emil Gleitsmann had a long criminal history of abortion starting in 1927 when he was implicated in the November 30 abortion death of 22-year-old homemaker Lucille van Iderstine. Gleitsman was indicted for felony murder in Lucille's death but for reasons I do not yet know why the case never came to fruition.
According to the Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database, on February 16, 1890, Mary Keegan died in Chicago from complications of an illegal abortion performed that day. Mary died at the location where the abortion was performed.
Mrs. Annie Schneider was arrested and held by the Coroner's Jury. She is described as employed in an unidentified profession.
According to the Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database, on February 16, 1925, 28-year-old homemaker Agnes Crowe died in Chicago's West Side Hospital from a criminal abortion performed that day.
The coroner indicated that a female midwife was responsible for Agnes' death, but did not name the guilty party.
I've been unable to find any other information on Agnes's death.
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| Grok AI illustration |
Blanche was a 24-year-old Black homemaker living with her husband, William, on Franklin Avenue in New York. She died at Kings County Hospital in New York 14, 1940. Her death was attributed to "generalized peritonitis; perforated uterus; gangrenous endometritis, criminal abortion."
She was the daughter of John and Mary Daniels.
I've been unable to learn anything else about Blanche's death.
Thirty-eight-year-old Maria Santiago ("Patient A") was an abortion patient at Associates in OB/GYN Care, a seedy Baltimore abortion facility located in a residential condominium complex. The medical director, Mansour G. Panah, had been disciplined by the state three times, including incidents in 1988 and 1995 when he had engaged in what the Baltimore Sun referred to as "unwanted sexual contact with patients."
According to an inspection conducted by the Maryland Department of Health, Maria was 12.5 weeks pregnant on February 13, 2013. The abortionist, Iris Dominy, did not obtain proper informed consent from Maria, who did not speak English or Spanish. She didn't perform a proper pre-operative physical examination. She didn't see to it that Maria was properly monitored while she was undergoing conscious sedation.
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| Nina Harding Pierce |
On February 10, 1925, Nina Ruth Harding and Logan F. Pierce ran away to Chicago and were married in a private ceremony performed by Rev. S. D. White of St. Paul's Methodist Church. Two school friends served as witnesses.
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| Logan Pierce |
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| Florence Nimick Schnoor |
Florence Nimick, 24-year-old grand-niece of Andrew Carnegie and heiress to a Pittsburgh steel fortune, was educated in Paris and Switzerland. She was multilingual and trained in music and art. Her father, Alexander K. Nimick, was heir to Coleman Steel Foundry in Pittsburgh. He and his most recent wife, Lucille, lived in Monte Carlo. His second wife, Beatrice Arnold Nimick, was Florence's mother and died when Florence was five years old.
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| Richard Schnoor |
The autopsy revealed that Florence had been two or three months into her pregnancy. The damage done was catastrophic. "It was one of the most atrociously brutal and clumsy operations I have ever seen. Her stomach had been punctured. I doubt if she had a chance of survival from the moment she left the operating table." Given the severity of the injuries, Dr. Squire estimated that the abortion had been perpetrated just a few hours before Florence had arrived at the hospital.
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| Edrica Karla Goode |
Edrica Karla Goode was a student at Riverside Community College. She 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 examined Edrica and noticed that she had "odiferous creamy-colored discharge", indicative of a vaginal infection, at the time. The nurse decided to go ahead and insert laminaria to dilate Edrica's cervix. Laminaria are sticks of seaweed that absorb moisture and expand, so they would wick any bacteria or viruses from the vagina into the uterus. The manufacturer specifies that they are not to be inserted if the patient has a vaginal infection. After establishing a clear path for the vaginal infection to enter Edrica's uterus, the nurse discharged her patient.
On February 14, 1943, Amelia Cardito, 34-year-old mother of 4, died at International Medical Center in New York. She had been under the care of Dr. Anthony Renda, who had admitted her on February 5 and had attributed her death to miscarriage and pneumonia. Her family laid her to rest, and it seemed like everybody was going to just move on.
But that wasn't how it played out.
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| Dr. Anthony Renda |
Renda might have been a smart doctor, but he was a stupid criminal. He also lacked the compassion one might expect one widower to have for amother. He and his brother, Attillio, sent a former judge, Francis X. Mancuso, to the police to complain that Amelia's widower, James, was shaking him down for $2,500.
Police went to Renda's office and hid as James and his brother arrived. When Renda handed over $1,000 to James, Lieutenant Martin Owens stepped forward and announced to the Carditos, "I will have to arrest you for blackmail."
That's when James told the police officer that Renda had perpetrated an abortion on Amelia in late January or early February, and had admitted her to the hospital when she suffered complications.
After Amelia's death, James said, Renda offered to pay the $800 medical expenses along with a total of $2,500 in installments for the motherless children.
"This is the first payment," James Cardito said, gesturing towards the money he was still holding.
That was when Anthony Renda was charged with homicide and his brother with compounding a felony.
Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas A. Gonzales ordered Amelia's body exhumed for an autopsy to find out why. And that's when it was discovered that she had died from an abortion.
