Homemaker Johanna Faulner, a 40-year-old German immigrant, died June 29, 1906, at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Chicago. Her cause of death was determined to be "Septicaemia following a criminal abortion, said criminal abortion performed by one Emily Redeniske (a midwife) in her house 1063 N. Witon Ave on or about June 14th AD 1906 and we the jury recommend she be held to the Grand Jury."
Redeniske was arrested in the death.
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Dawn Mendoza, a 28-year-old mother of two, underwent an abortion at the hands of Edward Rubin at Women's Medical Pavilion in Dobbs Ferry, New York, on June 29, 1988.
Grok AI illustration
Her brother, who had accompanied her, was instructed to wait in a grassy park across the street from the clinic and return at 4 pm to take her home. When he returned the staff again told him to come back later. When he returned at 5:30 they told him that Dawn was dead.
Rubin had performed a D&C abortion on Dawn, who then started screaming and gasping for breath. Staff tried unsuccessfully to revive her, but she died without ever being transferred to a hospital.
The medical examiner determined that she had died from amniotic fluid embolism, as evidenced by particles of placenta and amniotic fluid in her lungs.
Watch "Brother Returns to Clinic to Find Sister Dead" on YouTube.
Sources: Autopsy report #88-1488; and New York Post, July 4, 1989
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| Harlem Hospital |
According to New York death records, 22-year-old Mary Welch died at Harlem Hospital in Manhattan on June 29, 1939. Her cause of death was "acute endomeitritis streptococcic oepticemia, abortion probably induced." This would indicate a likely criminal abortion.
I've been unable to find any news coverage about Mary's death, perhaps because Mary was Black, and thus during that time considered less worthy of news coverage.
A paper in the Obstetrics & Gynecology medical journal in 2013 reported the death of a woman who died after taking the abortion pill because of Planned Parenthood’s negligence.
“Ella Roe” legally bought the abortion pill from a Planned Parenthood facility in 2009 or 2010. Planned Parenthood apparently failed to competently examine her in advance and most likely did not bother to give her an ultrasound. If they had, it would have been easy to diagnose Ella’s ectopic pregnancy.
Unaware that her life was in danger, Ella took the RU-486 pill. She trusted her health to an abortion facility and paid the price for their malpractice.
Ella died from the ruptured ectopic pregnancy. The condition could have and should have been diagnosed with a simple ultrasound, but Planned Parenthood didn’t care enough to examine her before selling her the pill.
The publication reporting her death does admit to severe side effects, but claims that their work “reinforces the safety” of the abortion pill. However, there are severe limitations and conflicts of interest that most likely prevented significant amounts of data from being included.
First, the data used was obtained mostly from Planned Parenthood, with the corporation even listed as one of the authors. They have been known to lie about statistics relating to abortion and would directly benefit from withholding data that made them look bad. Second, nobody is legally required to report abortion pill deaths or complications to authorities, meaning that it would be very easy to simply not report a case. One of the authors of the study was also noted to “receive compensation” from Danco Laboratories (the manufacturer of the abortion pill) in exchange for “providing third-party telephone consults to clinicians who call for expert advice on mifepristone.”
Other studies on the abortion pill have observed a high level of danger. Even one pro-abortion source showed that as many as 1 in 12.5 abortion pill clients had to go to the ER. Still, even this statistic could easily be underestimated because it’s hard to get accurate data on complications form American abortions because of the grossly deficient and flawed reporting system full of discrepancies. The chemical abortion pill can cause excessive bleeding, sepsis, gas gangrene, hypovolemia, uterine inversion, cryptogenic stroke, tachycardia, leukocytosis, edema, hypotension, metabolic acidosis, necrosis, immunological weakening, cardiac arrest and excruciating pain.
In addition, Planned Parenthood’s own data report showed that they missed ectopic pregnancies in 16 clients during the study period and gave them abortion pills. All they would have had to do to diagnose any of them was a basic exam and ultrasound. Every one of those women could have died the way Ella did. There is no excuse for this level of negligence.
As surprising as it is for something including Planned Parenthood’s input to admit to a client death, the claim in the publication is by no means proof that the abortion pill is safe.
Ella is not the only young woman who trusted Planned Parenthood and paid with her life.
More Planned Parenthood Deaths
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Citing the Alabama Department of Public Health's mortality statistics in 1992, all that Life Dynamics was able to learn was that Jean was in the 15-19 age range when she died that year.
On June 24, 1929, 19-year-old homemaker Winifred Mary Garver of South Bend, Indiana, underwent an abortion at the Chicago office of Dr. Anna Schultz, aka Rollins. Schultz was assisted by Dr. James White.
On June 27, both physicians were held by the coroner. Schultz was indicted for felony murder by a grand jury on October 6, 1930 and released on $10,000 bond. White was released on $5,000 bond. I've been unable to determine the outcome of the case.
19-year-old “Cathy” had been diagnosed with what the study reporting her death called a “sociopathic personality,” but before we can examine her death, it is important to understand what that actually meant.
During the 1970s, this diagnosis was used for what today’s medical professionals recognize as a wide variety of conditions and disorders. Many conditions that were poorly understood at the time also had a high chance of being misdiagnosed in this way. Cathy may have had any number of conditions, including but not limited to bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD, narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, depression, head trauma or even misdiagnosed ADHD or autism. In the early 70s, some people were even diagnosed with sociopathic or psychopathic personality disturbances based on criteria that would not qualify for a mental illness by today’s standards. It should also be noted that the psyche of an older teenager is still developing in ways that make most (if not all) modern psychiatrists extremely reluctant to diagnose such a young patient as what would be colloquially called a “sociopath”.
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The idea that an abortion would stabilize Cathy’s mental health proved to be horribly wrong. Abortion is not a recognized psychiatric treatment for any condition.
The abortion failed to stabilize Cathy, and appears to have pushed her already vulnerable state further into crisis. Instead of getting better, she deteriorated rapidly. Four days after the abortion, she used carbon monoxide to kill herself.
Given Cathy’s psychiatric health, it was reckless and negligent to put her through an abortion— and even more so with the claim that it would relieve her mental health problems. In her time of crisis, she needed real care, not abortion.
Summary: 18-year-old Inez McGraw died in Spartanburg, South Carolina after an abortion perpetrated by midwife Henrietta Henderson. Interestingly enough, the man who arranged the abortion was sentenced to more than double the sentence faced by the abortionist.
In the summer of 1942, Inez McGraw was an 18-year-old stenographer working at a mortuary in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. She was white, unmarried, and pregnant.
On June 23, her employer, 51-year-old William E. Evans—a married father of three and proprietor of the mortuary—arranged for her to have an abortion. He had gotten the name of a willing midwife from another black man, John Nix and had arranged that he would pay $15 for her services.
That afternoon, one of Evans’s Black employees, Robert Lee Bobo, picked Inez up in a truck owned by Evans and drove her to the Greenville highway. There she transferred into Evans’s private car. They went to the home of Henrietta Henderson, a 43-year-old Black midwife who lived on the old Greenville highway near Travelers Rest Church, just outside Spartanburg.
Inez went into a room in Henderson’s house while Evans waited on a cot.
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Two days later, on June 25, died at Spartanburg General Hospital. The cause was generalized gas gangrene, necrosis of the uterine wall, acute peritonitis, and septicemia. The physician who signed her death certificate noted the death as occurring “after miscarriage.”
Henrietta Henderson and William Evans were arrested separately on June 30. Both were initially held on $5,000 bond, but only Evans was able to post it. Later, Evans paid $30 to two bondsmen, J. L. Kimbrell and Ab Kimbrell, to help secure Henderson’s release from jail. Prosecutors would later argue Evans obtained the midwife's release because she would flee and be unable to testify against him.
The racial dynamics of the case drew significant attention; victim and the accused procurer were white; the abortionist and most of the key witnesses were black. The case also stood out for one striking fact: the man who arranged the fatal abortion received more than double the prison time given to the woman who performed it.
On the second and final day of the trial, which opened on July 27, 1942, Henderson changed her plea to guilty and turned state’s evidence against Evans. She testified that Evans had told her, “You don’t know me and I don’t know you… I want you to help me out… I want you to see after this girl for me… I done it.”
Henderson described the procedure in detail and confirmed Evans’s presence and payment. Her husband, Jesse Henderson, testified that he had been in the yard during the abortion. Other witnesses, including a woman named Eva Dixon who had approached Evans on Inez’s behalf, added to the case against him.
Evans denied being the father of the child and denied arranging the abortion. He claimed he had spoken with Henderson after her arrest and told her he “wasn’t the man who came out there.” He said he helped get her out on bond because she had been pressured by police—allegedly threatened with a “sweatbox,” a gun, and a billy club—and he wanted to know what she planned to say in court. He also expected to present an alibi for the afternoon of June 23.
After brief deliberation—just 19 minutes—the jury returned a guilty verdict against Evans. Circuit Judge T. S. Sease sentenced him to 12 years in prison, telling him, “Your sins have overtaken you—12 years.” Henrietta Henderson, who had pleaded guilty, received a five-year sentence.
Evans’s attorney announced an immediate appeal. Because his sentence exceeded ten years, any bond pending appeal would have to be set by the state supreme court. In a curious detail, the court’s written decision on Evans’s appeal referred to the victim as Inez Crawford rather than Inez McGraw.
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On June 25, 1911, 20-year-old Mrs. Anna Mueller died from a criminal abortion performed by Dr. George Lotz. Lotz was arrested July 5. He was indicted for felony murder.
Leslie Reagan, in her book "When Abortion Was a Crime," indicates that he was expelled from the Chicago Medical Society after admitting guilt in Anna's death, but there is no record that he served time for the crime. In fact, he was free and in Danville, Illinois in 1917, when he perpetrated a fatal attempted abortion on Matilda Tidrick.
Anna's abortion was typical of pre-legalization abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
Watch "Another Doctor Free to Kill Again" on YouTube.
SayTheirNames indicates that a Texan they call "Orielle" died from a legal abortion in Texas in 2008.
She does not match any other deaths on this blog. Other Texas deaths are:
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Toni Lyn, an Ohio native living in Austin, worked as a receptionist at an optical company.
According to news coverage of the suit, Toni Lyn suffered a perforated uterus during an abortion performed there on June 11, 1974 and died two weeks later, at 4:15 am on June 24, in Brackenridge Hospital in Austin.
The location of the facility is given as 4810 San Pedro Avenue in San Antonio newspapers.
Her death certificate provides only the scantiest information, saying only that she died of "embolism of the Pulmonary Artery," that an autopsy was performed, and "held inquest over body of deceased 6-24-74 at 5 A.M." Thus there is virtually no way that any public health department -- from local or county to the Federal level -- would have taken notice of this abortion-related death.
In addition to her parents, Toni Lyn left behind two sisters, a brother, and her grandparents.
There are only two articles available online regarding Toni Lyn's death so I'm unable to provide any further information.
Sources:
A Dubious Honor
Mrs. Edith L. Clark, age 29, traveled from her home in Newark, New Jersey to the Sparkhill, New York office of Dr. Robert Livingston to avail herself of the new law, for a first-trimester abortion on June 24, 1971.
Shortly after she was given an injection of Innovar for anesthesia, Edith went into cardiac arrest, and attempts to revive her failed. She left behind three children.
Edith was the first woman to die in New York's Rockland County from a newly legalized abortion. The second, 18-year-old Pamela Modugno, died in May of 1972 after an abortion in one of the many freestanding abortion facilities that opened immediately after New York decided to permit outpatient abortion-on-demand up to 24 weeks.
A Legalized "Back-Alley Butcher"
Livingston had only opened his office in Sparkhill, he told reporters, in order to do abortions on "basically black indigents from the Newark area." It was set up in what was later described as "a converted jewelry store and hardware store."
Needless to say, he failed to mention that he had managed to kill a New Jersey woman less than a month after opening that office.
Livingston justified abortion with the rather unscientific excuse that since sperm are wriggling and alive when he sees them under a microscope, they are "just as alive as a fertilized egg" and therefore killing a human embryo or fetus is no different from letting sperm die. He said that what he removed from the uterus in performing an abortion to be "equivalent to a scab."
In his criminal practice he charged $400 for an abortion -- less than what he'd heard that other abortionists were charging -- so that he'd not be giving his patients a reason to coplain.
It's also telling to note that none of the positive press Livingston got for wanting to abort the babies of "basically black indigents" thought Edith's death worth mentioning either. No deaths were ever connected to his criminal practice.
Moving Along
After Roe v. Wade made Livingston's New Jersey practice legal, he opened Metropolitan Medical Associates in the Englewood area, operating it until around 1980, when he moved to Florida. Dr. Steven Berkman later perpetrated a fatal abortion on "Jane Doe of Newark" there, but by that time Livingston was no longer associated with the facility.
Other Dubious Beneficiaries of New York's Law
In addition to Edith and Pamela these are the women I know of who had the dubious benefit of dying from the newfangled safe-and-legal kind of abortion in pre-Roe New York:
Watch A Dubious Honor on YouTube.
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On June 10, 1882, a wealthy 62-year-old farmer named James T. Phillips brought his daughter, 20-year-old Ruth Phillips, from their home to another farm near DeSoto, Wisconsin, where his two older daughters lived.
Ruth took violently ill. On June 13, she delivered stillborn twins.
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Ruth died on June 24, and was buried on the 26th.
"After the death and burial," says the July 26, 1882 Vernon County Censor, "suspicion of foul play having been around in the neighborhood, Phillips was arrested, the body disinterred, and a post mortem examination had by Dr. Gott."
The autopsy showed that Ruth had died from uterine inflammation, though there were no marks of instrumentation that the doctor could find.
Phillips. a native of Wales, was arrested and jailed pending $1,400 bail (a little over $11,000 in 2022). "There is much excitement in the community where Phillips lives, and open threats of lynching in case he secures bail."
"The crimes is the most terrible one that can be conceived, and if Phillips is proven guilty, no punishment that the law provides for such offenses can prove adequate."
Phillips had been tried fifteen years earlier for committing incest against another of his daughters, but was acquitted in that case.
Lynching turned out to be unnecessary. Phillips hanged himself in his jail cell on August 5, 1882. This leads me to believe that the abortion had really taken place, since a mere incest case hadn't been enough to lead him to suicide 15 years or so earlier.
Watch "Jailhouse Suicide" on YouTube.
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“Evelyn” was 31 years old when she underwent a “safe and legal” suction curettage abortion at an American abortion facility. She had no idea of the negligence that was about to take her life.
Evelyn was estimated to have been only ten weeks pregnant even though her own account of her last menstrual period put her in the second trimester. The inconsistency of the size of her uterus with her own report was apparently not enough motivation for the abortion facility to give her a competent pre-op examination. Had they done this, it should have been easy to diagnose her ectopic pregnancy.
Immediately after the abortion, it also should have been possible to examine the remains and quickly tell even with the naked eye that there were no fetal body parts. The presumptive “remains”were also allegedly sent to an outside pathologist for analysis, but any attempts at warning Evelyn (if any were even made) came too late. She was dead one day later, even though by all means her ectopic pregnancy should have already been diagnosed.
Evelyn had already had one prior abortion, which may have contributed to her last pregnancy being ectopic. Many studies show that abortion increases future risk for ectopic pregnancy, and one even found that approximately half of ectopic pregnancies in the studied area may have been attributable to previous abortions. Women with undiagnosed ectopic pregnancies who undergo abortions are also more likely to die than those who don’t, which is due to persistent negligence in the abortion industry like Evelyn suffered.
The study that recorded Evelyn’s death noted that examining what had been removed after the abortion should have provided an opportunity to warn Evelyn before she even left the facility.
Fatal Ectopic Pregnancy After Legally Induced Abortion, JAMA October 10, 1989
Cora A. Burke, age 20, lived with her mother and 4-year-old son and her parents in Idaho. She'd been widowed about five months and had recently become engaged to marry.
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| Dr. R. J. Alcorn |
In May of 1899, Cora told Mrs. Martha Johnson that she was about six weeks pregnant and wanted to find a good doctor to perform an abortion. Mrs. Johnson introduced Cora to Dr. Robert J. "R. J." Alcorn who had been practicing medicine in Kootenai County, Idaho, for a short time. Dr. Alcorn was living in the boarding house Mrs. Johnson operated with Mr. E.J. Abbey.
Cora went to Dr. Alcorn's room about two days after they were introduced. Mr. Abbey listened from an adjoining room, and heard Cora say that the instrument Dr. Alcorn was using was hurting her.
On the night of Tuesday, June 21, Dr. Alcorn asked Mr. T.J. Rundell to help him carry a table into his office, which was at the back of a drug store in the town of Harrison. Rundell's curiosity was piqued, and he asked Alcorn if he was going to "dissect a stiff." Alcorn told him no, he was going to perform an operation on somebody from across the river.
Rundell decided to snoop, so he returned at 10:00 PM and saw Cora go through the drug store into Alcorn's office. Rundell then slipped around to the back of the building, where he could peer into Alcorn's office around an ill-hung window blind. The following is what Rundell says he observed.
Alcorn stood beside the chair where Cora was sitting, supporting her head with one hand. He had a small vial containing a dark liquid, and was holding a cloth to Cora's face. Cora seemed to fall into a deep sleep, whereupon Alcorn picked her up and lay her on the table.
Alcorn removed Cora's undergarments and positioned her for the surgery. He examined her internally, inserted a speculum, then inserted a probe about a foot long into her body, causing a flow of blood which he blotted up with a cloth. From time to time, Alcorn applied the cloth to Cora's face again. The entire procedure took about an hour and a half.
Cora was awakened, and Alcorn helped her to set her clothing to rights and sent her on her way.
At about 4 PM the next day, Alcorn was called to tend to Cora, who was in a lot of pain. He examined her and found her uterus to be inflamed and bleeding. He prescribed ergot, to be given one-half teaspoon each half-hour for three doses, then every hour afterward for 18 hours. Cora's mother asked Alcorn about her daughter's condition. Alcorn told her, "She caught a bad cold. She does not flow enough when she has her monthlies. I will give her something to make her flow."
At about 6:00 PM on the 21st, William Ketchum called Alcorn to visit Mrs. Ketchum, but Alcorn told him, "Well, I don't know. I am expecting a miscarriage here any minute. I can go over there, and come back, if it does not make any difference to them." So he went to Ketchum's home to attend to his wife.
Over the ensuing days, Alcorn visited Cora five times, the last time about two hours before she died on Friday afternoon, June 23. Her feet and hands were cold, her fingers blue, her lips purple. Alcorn told Cora's mother that she was doing well and would be up soon. Alcorn immediately took a train to Washington state, returning about 10:00 on the following Sunday morning. The next day he again left the state, this time going to Montana, where he was arrested and returned to Kootenai county.
While Cora had been ill, she passed a lot of blood and clots. Mrs. Knight, who visited Cora during her illness, testified, "I helped dress her after she was dead. Her clothing and bedclothing were saturated with blood. A quilt was doubled up under her four thicknesses, and it was clear through the quilt. It was clots of blood. I observed an odor in connection with it. There was too great a quantity to have come from the ordinary menstruation. Much greater in quantity."
Kootenai County Sherriff F. H. Bradbury testified about the conversation he'd had with Alcorn on the train bringing him back to face justice. "He told me that he never had anything to do with this girl, Cora Burke; that he began in the daytime an operation on a man for stricture, and did not complete it; and that he took him in the back room of the drug store and completed the operation in the evening. He gave me this statement after I had warned him not to make any statement to me."
Alcorn testified on is own behalf, saying that Cora had attempted to do an abortion on herself with "a hair dart," which had punctured the wall of her uterus and broken off, leaving about 1 1/2 inches. Alcorn said that he'd used a speculum and piston syringe to remove the foreign body from Cora's uterus.
The physicians called as expert witnesses on the case all agreed that Cora died of septicemia or blood poisoning. They also agreed that ergot itself would be enough to cause an abortion.
Alcorn's defense also raised the possibility that Cora hadn't actually been pregnant, but the court concluded that Cora had believed herself to be pregnant, had sought an abortion, and had undergone a procedure intended to cause an abortion, which was enough to demonstrate the intent of the defendant to kill a fetus, especially in the light of Alcorn's statement that he was expecting a patient to miscarry.
Alcorn was charged with murder. His first trial ended with a hung jury. The second jury found him guilty of manslaughter. The judge sentenced Alcorn to seven years in the penitentiary. Alcorn appealed, partially on the grounds that since the indictment did not specifically say that the abortion took place in 1899, the injury was not proven to have taken place less than a year and a day prior to the death.
Watch "Shouldn't 'All Surgery Have Risks' Apply?" at YouTube.
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