Tuesday, June 16, 2026

June 16, 1910: First Death Attributed to Fred Orainger

On June 16, 1910, Mrs. Paulina Sproc, a 35-year-old immigrant from Bohemia, died in a Chicago home from an abortion that had been performed on June 5.

A man mistakenly identified in the Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database as W.L. Orsinger was held by the coroner's jury. However, his name was actually Fred L. Orsinger. Orsinger had battled with the medical board for 32 years trying to get licensed and insisted on practicing regardless.

Ten years later Orsinger was implicated in the abortion death of Minnie Schofield in March of 1917.

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

Sources: 
Chicago Business Directory, 1904


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June 16, 1971: Empty Promise of Legalization Means Death for Young Mom

Summary: Margaret Loise Smith, age 25, sought a safe abortion after being exposed to rubella. She was dead by the end of the day.

Who Was Jesse Ketchum?

Dr. Jesse Ketchum
Back before legalization, Jesse Ketchum (November 7, 1917 - July 20, 2005) operated his abortion practice alongside a legitimate (if somewhat lawsuit-prone) medical practice. Although Ketchum's criminal abortion practice wasn't the best in the world, he evidently maintained some standards and protocols for screening patients. No patient deaths have been attributed to Ketchum's criminal practice, though he was arrested a total of three times for perpetrating abortions, and was convicted of breaking federal tax laws, and for obscene conduct in a pornographic movie theater. He settled or was judged against in nine malpractice suits.

Ketchum kept abortion instruments in his house and perpetrated abortions in a motel room. Clergy Consultation Services (CCS), an organization created specifically to refer women to abortionists, began referring women to him.

In late 1969 or early 1970, Ketchum was arrested after an undercover policewoman arranged for him to perform an abortion at a motel in Southfield, Michigan. She had been referred to Ketchum through Clergy Consultation Service.

The Michigan Women's Commission and CCS responded to Ketchum's arrest by starting a drive to repeal laws against abortion. County Prosecutor Thomas Plunkett objected to feeling forced to prosecute Ketchum because he, himself, favored abortion rights. Whether allowing the likes of Jesse Ketchum to ply the abortion trade without let or hindrance was not even taken into consideration by his supporters.

Shuffle Off to Buffalo

When New York legalized abortion on demand in 1970, 52-year-old Ketchum -- assisted by his wife, Judith, nearly 30 years his junior -- set up shop in a Buffalo motel suite. For Ketchum, New York must have seemed like the Promised Land. Abortionists were flaunting safety standards with impunity. Practices such as injecting patients with saline then sending them home to abort raised eyebrows, to be sure, but they didn't get anybody thrown in jail even if the woman died. CCS continued to refer women to Ketchum in his new location.

On May 28, 1971, Ketchum did a D&C abortion under general anesthesia on Ellen K. Lawler of New Baltimore, MI, in his Buffalo office. Only later, at an undisclosed time, did Mrs. Lawler discover that Ketchum had lacerated her uterus, anterior cul-de-sac, right broad ligament, and peritoneum. He had told her the abortion had been uncomplicated. Such severe injuries in a criminal abortion patient would have brought the heat down on our boy Jesse. But this was New York, abortion was legal, and although Mrs. Lawler suffered ill effects from Ketchum's foul-up, Ketchum himself was able to carry on. And carry on he did. By late October of 1971, Ketchum had signed and filed 862 fetal death certificates, about 15% of the total abortions done in the county that year. He reported having done 17 abortions in a single day -- February 3, 1971. 

Ketchum decided to do hysterotomy abortions -- which involve slicing the uterus open to remove the baby -- in his office. It didn't take long for this practice to turn deadly. In the second half of 1971, Ketchum caught the eyes of the authorities by allowing two hysterotomy patients to bleed to death. 

Enter Margaret Smith

His first victim was 25-year-old Margaret Louise Smith. Margaret was a divorced mother with two children from her marriage. When she discovered that she was pregnant by her boyfriend, Billy Ray Ellenburg, they intended to keep the baby. However, Margaret's 5-year-old daughter contracted either measles or rubella, commonly known as German measles. 

If a mother contracted rubella during early pregnancy, there was a significant risk of catastrophic harm to the unborn baby. Later in pregnancy the risks would be less severe but still concerning. Mere exposure, however, would not harm the baby, especially if the mother herself had contracted rubella in childhood. As for ordinary measles, even a full-scale bout of measles posed no risk to the baby at all. 

Laypersons could easily be confused about measles vs. German measles, as well as the risk of exposure vs. the risk of actually contracting the disease. It's no surprise, then, that Margaret was afraid that the exposure to her sick daughter had harmed the unborn baby, so she contacted Clergy Consultation Services (CCC). 

CCC was organization convinced that they were doing God's work by finding and referring women to abortionists rather than helping them to resolve the issues that were making abortion look like a solution to their problems. In Margaret's case, with a pregnancy she originally planned to carry to term, a responsible course of action would have been to reassure Margaret that the risk was very low and that there was a cheap blood test to determine if she had contracted rubella without showing symptoms. But CCC didn't have a culture of holistic approaches. They had a culture of hasty referrals, and any mention of possible rubella exposure was to be handled with an abortion referral without taking the time or trouble to find out if even a loved and wanted baby had been harmed. When in doubt, abort. 

CCC volunteers not only weren't informed of any information that might reassure a frightened pregnant women, they weren't informed of CCC's rather sketchy method of vetting the practitioners women were referred to. They would send women posing as patients to see if the practice looked clean and professional, but these were laypersons with no training in proper medical practice. When CCC did bother to send a doctor to vet abortionist Milan Vuitch, Nathanson noted rushed procedures, inadequate follow up, and a rather blasé attitude towards compilations, but Vuitch was a fellow soldier in the fight for legalization so Nathanson endorsed him in spite of his reservations.

So with zero effort to determine if her wanted baby had even been exposed to rubella and no real appreciation of the background of their trusted practitioner, CCC referred Margaret to Ketchum.

By the time Margaret and her boyfriend arrived in Buffalo on Tuesday, June 15, 1971, Ketchum had moved his practice out of the motel room and into a proper medical office, Room 605 Medical Towers, 50 High Street in Buffalo. (Up through January of 1971, Ketchum had been doing his abortions at the Sheraton Hotel at 715 Delaware Avenue.) The fact that Ketchum was in an actual medical arts building rather than a motel likely would have reassured Margaret that CCC had indeed set her up for an abortion that was not only legal, but safe. She and Billy Ray went to Ketchum's office for a 9:15 appointment on June 16. They gave Ketchum five $100 bills to pay for the abortion. That's just over $1,000 in 2025.

Grok AI illustration
Billy Ray left, trusting his loved one to Ketchum's care.

Ketchum performed a vaginal hysterotomy on Margaret at 10:30 the morning of June 16, 1971 in his office. Margaret would have been put in stirrups and heavily sedated. Ketchum would then position Margaret's uterus by grasping the cervix with a tenaculum and pulling it into position. This would enable him to cut through the back of the vagina to access the uterus, then cut through the uterus to access and remove the fetus. The fetus would be put in a pan and left to die of prematurity while Ketchum was supposed to remove the placenta and suture shut the incisions he had made. 

Ketchum performed his procedure, then left Margaret virtually unattended until Billy Ray returned at around noon. He spent about half an hour with Margaret, noting that she was having trouble breathing. Ketchum reassured him and told him to return later. Billy Ray came back again at around 2 pm and again found Margaret struggling to breathe. He begged Ketchum and his staff to do something.

Paramedics were summoned, but they were unable to revive Margaret. They pronounced her dead at 4:5o pm. The firefighters on the rescue squad considered the circumstances suspicious and contacted the homicide squad. Ketchum told police that Margaret "had a heart seizure." 

Margaret's body was taken to the morgue for autopsy. Margaret's vagina had been sutured, but a laceration in her uterus and cervix had not been repaired. Ketchum had cut the uterus open but not stitched the incision shut again. Margaret had bled to death. -- just across the street from a hospital that could have saved her life had Ketchum made the effort to monitor her. (Ketchum V. Ward No. Civ-75-79)

Unexpected Fallout

Ketchum was verily astounded when he was charged with criminally negligent homicide in Margaret Smith's death. Abortion, after all, was legal. How could one be prosecuted for doing something legal? And evidently he didn't think the state could possibly succeed in their case. He kept taking risks with patient's lives Before his case went to trial, he performed a similar abortion on 37-year-old Carole Schaner of Ohio on October 20, 1971. Carole was 14 weeks pregnant. After the abortion, Carole went into shock, and was taken to a hospital. Despite all efforts, Carole died before doctors could even fully assess the extent of her injuries. She left behind four children.


A balding middle-aged white man leaning back in a chair and gesturing with his hand
Dr. Milan Vuitch
Ketchum was convicted of criminally negligent manslaughter for Margaret's death on October 26, 1973, despite the fact that renowned abortionist Milan Vuitch (who had challenged the District of Columbia abortion law) testified on his behalf. Margaret's parents sued him for $350,000. Ketchum tried various legal moves to stay out of prison. When Roe v. Wade was handed down and assorted criminal abortionists started getting their old convictions thrown out, Ketchum tried Roe for leverage. He got nowhere. Eventually, he was sentenced to prison. 

Ketchum Bounces Back

Ketchum served little time, however. He was released after less than a year, and relocated to Florida.
.
Ketchum had asked to take the test to become licensed in Florida but his request was denied. In spite of this, he found work at the University of Miami School of Medicine, at Jackson Memorial Hospital, and at the VA hospital in Miami, from September of 1976 to November of 1977. It turned out that no license was required for a doctor to practice in a government operated hospital.

In 1978, he and Judith divorced.

While at the Miami School of Medicine, Ketchum was administering oxygen to Mrs. M for routine surgery. Rather than the 40% oxygen he was to administer, Ketchum provided only 15%. Mrs. M failed to notice until Mrs. M had gone into a coma from which she still hadn't recovered after 19 months.

According to the medical board licensee lookup, Ketchum relocated to Michigan. His petitions to restore his medical license, made in 1984 and 1987, were both denied. Nevertheless, despite killing two women, he remained a free man until his death in 2005.

News clipoping photo, poor quality, of a middle-aged white man with a receeding hairline and a mustache, wearing a jacket and tie
Dr. Benjamin Munson
As for the former criminal abortionist, Milan Vuitch, who had testified on Ketchum's behalf -- he also had kept his nose clean as a criminal abortionist, then went on to kill two legal abortion patients. Wilma Harris and Georgianna English. Another abortionist that I know about, Benjamin Munson, likewise, had a clean record in his criminal abortionist then went on to kill two women in his supposedly safer legal practice -- Linda Padfield and Yvonne Mesteth.

Legalization -- as we can see from these specific tragedies as well as from the numbers -- did nothing to protect women from dying at the hands of abortionists. If anything, it seemed to have emboldened them to take risks they never would have considered taking were a botched abortion alone enough to carry the risk of the loss of a medical license or even of freedom.

Sources  


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June 16, 1993: Fatal Hemorrhage in Newark

Dr. Steven Berkman

A 20-year-old Newark college student, identified in prolife sources as "Jane Doe of Newark," underwent a safe and legal abortion by Dr. Steven Berkman at Metropolitan Medical Associates on June 16, 1993. She was in the second trimester of pregnancy.

Jane reportedly felt dizzy in recovery. Berkman examined her, noted that she had a perforated uterus, and had her taken to a hospital by ambulance. She died in surgery about four hours later, leaving her four-year-old son motherless.

"We are intensely investigating this matter," said an attorney for Jane's family. "We know something occurred that shouldn't have. We had a healthy 20-year-old go into that clinic and not come out. And I think a delay had something to do with it." Her medical chart showed the injury occurring at 10 a.m., but the ambulance wasn't summoned until two hours later.

A state report cited "chaos and confusion" when the ambulance arrived at the clinic to find Jane lifeless. The ambulance workers were not given adequate information about her condition.

Berkman said that there was no delay in transporting Jane to the hospital. He also said he did not believe she died from blood loss. The Bergen County Medical Examiner found that Jane had died from hemorrhage from a perforated uterus. Jane also had developed a clotting disorder that made it difficult to stop any bleeding. He ruled the death accidental.

Jane Roe is "Tracy" on Life Dynamics' "Blackmun Wall".


Watch "Did They Wait Too Long?" on YouTube.

Sources: 

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Monday, June 15, 2026

1974: A Series of Deadly Complications

An unidentified woman died after a series of complications from a legal abortion. She has been given the name “Hailey” here.

Hailey underwent a legal abortion in the year after Roe v. Wade. The supposedly “safe and legal” abortion would result in two deaths.

Hailey’s uterus was perforated by the abortion. She suffered severe hemorrhage and needed blood transfusions. After these transfusions, she developed hepatitis, which killed her.

Source here

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Sunday, June 14, 2026

June 14, 1983: No One Willing to Take Responsibility for Abortion Death

A lawsuit filed by Eduardo Bermeo alleged that his wife, Ecuadoran-born Rosario Bermeo, age 30, died following abortion by Dr. Joseph B. Shapse at Prospect Hospital in New York June 14, 1983.

Shapse noted that no autopsy had been performed, so Eduardo could not prove that Rosario had die for any reason "beyond respiratory and cardiac arrest." He said that the abortion proceeded without incident, and that he had no responsibility for actions of the certified registered nurse anesthetist. 

The CRNA, Shapse noted, had been the one monitoring Rosario after the abortion, when her vital signs began to fail. Therefore, he said, he was not to blame for her death.

Eduardo's attorney countered with an affidavit by a physician that Shapse was indeed responsible for supervising the SRNA and that he had a duty to monitor and evaluate his patient's condition during and immediately after surgery.

Prospect operated only from 1963 to 1985, according to Forgotten New York. It did not long outlive Eduardo's unfortunate wife. 

Watch Passing the Buck on YouTube.
Watch Passing the Buck on Rumble. 

Source: New York Appellate Court 162 A.D.2d 235

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June 14, 1977: First Known National Abortion Federation Death

Who Was Barbaralee Davis?

Eighteen-year-old Barbaralee Davis had already lived an intense life. With her mother's permission, she had married 21-year-old David A. Davis II in September of 1973 at the age of only 15. She was separated from her husband and was caring for a 3-year-old son. Barbaralee had a history of irregular periods, but when she noticed symptoms of pregnancy she visited a local hospital for a pregnancy test, which came out negative. However, her symptoms continued so she returned to the hospital two weeks later and this time the pregnancy test was positive.

Trusting the National Abortion Federation

Barbaralee requested an abortion referral. A local women's group sent her to Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois. Hope Clinic, about a two-hour drive from Barbaralee's home, was a member of the newly founded National Abortion Federation. Her abortion was scheduled for about one week later.

Hope Clinic for Women

When Barbaralee arrived at the clinic on June 14, 1977, it had been five months since her last menstrual period.

Hope Medical Director Hector Zavalos examined Barbaralee and concluded that she was 11 weeks pregnant. Zavalos performed a suction curettage abortion. 

Barbaralee was moved to the recovery room. The last recording of her blood pressure, taken about 45 minutes after the abortion, was low, at 100/68.

Barbaralee attended a post-abortion counseling session, during which she was pale and reporting lower abdominal cramping. She was kept for observation an additional half an hour.

At some point staff told Barbaralee's worried sister, Rita Tripp, that there had been complications but that everything would be fine.

Sent Home Hemorrhaging

About two hours after the abortion, Barbaralee reportedly told staff that she felt better and asked to be sent home. Barbaralee was not given a discharge examination. Zavalos simply sent her on her way, asserting that she seemed to be okay. However, according to the CDC's investigators, Barbaralee was showing symptoms "suggestive of internal hemorrhage."  Her sister said that Barbaralee was pale and weak when she helped her out to the car.

Barbaralee lay in the back seat on the way home. When they arrived, Rita said, Barbaralee told her that she felt like something was wrong. 

Rita said that she tried to call Zavalos but was unable to reach him.

Barbaralee remained lethargic and seemed to go to sleep. About two hours after returning home she tried to stand up but fainted. She was rushed to the Pinckneyville hospital by ambulance, where an emergency hysterectomy was attempted to save her life. Barbaralee died during the surgery, leaving her child motherless.

What The Autopsy Revealed

The autopsy found the face and spinal column of Barbaralee's baby embedded in a hole in her uterus. There were two quarts of blood in her abdomen. Barbaralee had bled to death.

The medical examiner noted: "A very large retroperitoneal hematoma is present with dissection of blood along right ureter. A 4 mc. tear is noted on the right anterior surface of the lower third of the uterus and a large amount of blood, estimated at 2000 ccs. is present in the pelvis. Two fetal parts, the face and thoracic spinal column, are embedded in a 700 cc. fresh hematoma inside the uterus."

Illinois law placed a 12-week limit on outpatient abortions. Zavalos told CDC investigators that he thought Barbaralee had been only 11 weeks pregnant even though her last normal menstrual period had been five months earlier. The clinic records examined by CDC staff said that the gross examination of the fetal tissue removed during the abortion was consistent with an 11-week pregnancy. However, the medical examiner drew a different conclusion, based on the tissue that had been left embedded in Barbaralee's uterus:

In an attempt to estimate the length of gestation in the absence of the whole fetus, the two parts, namely the face, less the crown, and the thoracic vertebral column without the rump, are laid end to end. Together they measure 9 cm. A conservative estimate of the crown to rump length would be 10 to 11 cm. This will place the gestational age at 16 to 16 1/2 weeks.

The Lawsuit

Barbaralee's family sued both Zavalos and the clinic for $1 million. In particular, Barbaralee's family attorney brought up the following issues:

  • "Patients who receive abortions should be observed at the clinic 'for a period of time sufficient to ensure that no immediate post-operative complications are present'."
  • "Patients in whom any adverse condition exists or in whom a complication is known should be transferred to a hospital"
  • "Clinics should have a 'written agreement' with an approved hospital to provide 'prompt transfer' of persons requiring in-patient care."
Illinois law required that outpatient surgery centers have a written agreement with a hospital not more than 15 minutes away for transfer of patients needing care. Hope Clinic did not have any such written agreement.

A doctor reviewing the case for Barbaralee's family noted that it would be evident from the fetal remains whether Barbaralee's unborn baby was over 16 weeks or merely 11 weeks. For reference, an 11-week fetus is about 1.6 inches long and weighs about 1.6 ounces, while a 16-week fetus is about 7.3 inches long and weighs a little over 5 ounces. A foot measurement, which is commonly used in abortion facilities to verify fetal age, would be 7-8 mm in an 11-week fetus and 20 mm in a 16-week fetus.

The defendants tried to get the case thrown out on a technicality, because the family's attorney had sued both the facility and the doctor under the same count. In response, the attorney severed the two cases and asked for $1.4 million from each rather than $1 million for the two defendants.

Hope Clinic for Women was not only permitted to remain in operation, it was allowed to remain a member in good standing of the National Abortion Federation.

Sources: 

Watch "Lying or Clueless?" on YouTube.


As I was updating the entry for Barbaralee, the first known abortion death at a National Abortion Federation member clinic, I because disgusted as I always am by the cavalier attitude the abortion lobby -- and their media lapdogs -- take towards women's legal abortion deaths. I just want to take some time to call out a particularly infuriating example.

The September 1, 1977 Decatur Daily Review quotes attorney Frank Susman, who had defended Dr. Kenneth Edelin in an infanticide case related to a post-viability abortion. 

The face and spine of Barbaralee's fetus were found embedded in a rip in her uterus. But how did Susman characterize the failure to even notice that major parts of the fetus hadn't been removed? "[A]bortion, like all surgical procedures involves a risk, and possibly a risk of death. And this patient in this procedure was advised of that."

Was Barbaralee informed that it was possible that pieces of her dead fetus would be left embedded in a uterine tear, and that she might be sent home with an undiagnosed, life-threatening injury? And why is "Well, all surgery has risks" an excuse for an abortion death caused by such an egregious injury? Had Barbaralee's abortion been illegal, though still performed by a doctor, no doubt that same spokesperson for the abortion lobby would have been livid about how the legal status of abortion had forced Barbaralee to seek substandard care and suffer an injury she never would have died from had her abortion been legal. If it weren't for double standards, the abortion lobby would have no standards at all.

Then there's the misinformation: "I think we just have to put this in perspective and realize that -- for example -- well over a million abortions were performed last year in the United states and there were five deaths."

That statement simply wasn't true. According to the 1976 CDC Abortion Surveillance Summary, there were ten legal abortion deaths -- twice the number Susman claimed. To be fair, the CDC doesn't exactly leap out and announce abortion death numbers right away. The 1976 summary wasn't issued until August of 1978. Susman doesn't say where he got the lowball number. The CDC also admittedly missed one, since the 2019 Abortion Surveillance Summary notes 11 legal abortion deaths for 1976. Of course, that's assuming that the CDC actually knows -- or even cares -- how many legal abortion deaths there are. There's abundant evidence that their data collection on legal abortion deaths has been perfunctory at best since Willard Cates and David Grimes left the abortion surveillance branch.

The kicker, though, is the way Susman, the abortion lobby, and the media simply dismiss legal abortion deaths as nothing worth worrying your pretty little head about. Imagine if, after an airline crash, the NTSB and the airlines insisted that the concern was far out of proportion and started citing the overall safety of airline travel. Such a transparently self-serving attitude would be roundly condemned. For some reason, though, the abortion lobby is able to dismiss cases of fatal malpractice by reminding us that comparatively few patients actually die. 

The proper response to any death caused by mistakes, or slipshod procedures, or faulty equipment is to do a preventability study and to at least suggest corrective action. Why aren't abortion facilities held to this standard?

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June 14, 1991: Deadly Abortionist Better Than No Abortionist At All?

  

Angela Hall, a 27-year-old mother of five, felt unable to deal with a sixth child. She saw an advertisement for safe, legal abortion at Thomas Tucker's office in Alabama.  The ad, which pictured a couple walking arm-in-arm, said that Tucker did abortions to 24 weeks. Angela called to schedule an appointment. 

Angela was keeping the abortion a secret from her mother, and drove to Tucker's Birmingham clinic with a friend, Annette Wilson. One of Tucker's employees, Joy Davis, screened Angela and felt that she had risk factors that made abortion in an office setting unsafe. She had a fever and was anemic. Joy got on the phone with Tucker and indicated that she felt that Angela should be referred to a hospital. Tucker told Davis that "we need the money. Just do it. Just put the patient through." 

Tucker ordered her to prep Angela, who was in the second trimester of pregnancy. The fee for Angela's abortion was $1,800. She was already unconscious, under general anesthesia, when Tucker started the abortion on June 11, 1991. Angela started gasping for breath. Her blood pressure fell, setting off an alarm on a piece of monitoring equipment. Tucker told Davis to turn the alarm off because other patients could hear it. "It was a very panicked atmosphere," Joy Davis said. "Dr. Tucker was screaming at us." He managed to stabilize Angela's blood pressure and sent her to the recovery room.

While in recovery, Angela bled so heavily that Davis became alarmed and called an ambulance. "Blood was running down the table," Joy Davis tearfully told reporters. "It was pooling in the floor and running down behind her back." Angela's sheets and hospital gown were soaked. Davis said that Tucker told her that he was the doctor and if anybody was going to make a decision to call the ambulance, it was going to be him.

Davis reported to Tucker that Angela was bleeding through the packing put in place after the abortion, and asked him to do something for his patient.

"What do you want me to do?" he asked her. 

"I don't know," Davis said she responded, "but I want you to do something. She's going to lay here and die."

"Fine. Call the f*ing ambulance," Tucker said before leaving the building, according to Davis. He was loath to call an ambulance, Davis reported, because he had already referred a patient to a hospital that day for complications. 

Angela was taken to the hospital, where she suffered respiratory failure, clotting, and sepsis. It was hours after she was admitted that her friend finally called her mother, in hysterics, to say that Angela was being taken to the Intensive Care Unit. Annette didn't mention the abortion. Angela's mother rushed to the hospital, where she saw her daughter hooked up to tubes, pale, and breathing only faintly. 

She died just before midnight June 14. The autopsy found numerous tears and lesions in the pelvic area, and congestive necrosis in Angela's liver and spleen. The doctors concluded that amniotic fluid embolism had caused clotting problems resulting in necrosis, septic shock, and cardiac arrest. 

When Alabama authorities subpoenaed Angela's records, Tucker ordered Davis to destroy some and falsify others. Davis tore up the records, which he then tried to burn in an ash tray, Davis said. When this set off the clinic's smoke alarm, Tucker put out the fire, bagged up the papers, and told Davis to take the papers to the basement and burn them. Instead, she said, she taped them back together and eventually turned them over to the medical board. 

During the initial investigation, the board learned that Tucker allowed his untrained staff to do medical procedures, including inserting the laminaria sticks to dilate a patient's cervix prior to the abortion, while he wasn't even in-state much less at the clinic.

Tucker surrendered his medical license in order to halt the investigation, planning to renew his license at a later date.

It is interesting to note that in the publicity surrounding the lawsuit filed by Angela's family, Ron Fitzsimmons of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, among other prochoice groups, balked at efforts to close Tucker down, on the grounds that he was Alabama's only abortionist, and that even he was better than no abortionist at all.

Angela's parents took their five grandchildren into their two-bedroom house. Her youngest child has no memories of his mother, only of taking flowers to her grave.

Watch How Important is a Local Abortionist? on YouTube.

Sources:

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June 14, 2005: Medical abortion fatal for California attorney

Oriane Shevin
Oriane Shevin, age 34, was an attorney in Sherman Oaks, California. She had two young children, ages 3 and 4.

There is no record of why Oriane chose to abort their sibling, but she did make that decision. She got abortion drugs at the Eve Surgical Center in West Los Angeles in June of 2005. She took the mifepristone on June 9 and vaginally inserted the misoprostol on June 10. 

Misoprostol is supposed to be administered by inserting it between the cheek and gum, not inserted vaginally. For reasons that are still being explored, vaginal administration of misoprostol is associated with rapid-onset fatal toxic shock syndrome. Thought this has resulted in the deaths of Holly Patterson, Hoa Thuy “Vivian” Tran, Brenda Vise, Amber Thurmond, and Alyona Dixon, abortion-rights activists continue to encourage women to administer the drug vaginally -- and to lie about having done so if they need to go to the hospital. This increases the risk of death by preventing doctors from quickly taking appropriate measures.

The coroner's office was not able to determine if any physician saw or examined Oriane at the abortion facility. Both Christopher Dotson, M.D. and Josepha Seletz, M.D. are associated with the facility. 

Oriane sickened three days after taking the drugs. She was suffering from severe pain and heavy bleeding, and was rushed by ambulance to Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center, where she died on June 14 from severe metabolic acidosis and sepsis. 

Oriane's family sued both doctors, who agreed to pay a $1million settlement due to their failure to provide Oriane with adequate medical supervision after dispensing the drugs.

Dotson has a spotted history. At the time of Oriane's abortion, Dotson had not yet completed eight years medical board probation for gross negligence and incompetence in causing the death of an obstric patient identified as "RJI" on February 3, 1992. The board said that Dotson "was grossly negligent in the care and treatment of RJI." He failed to take an adequate exam, failed to classify her as a high risk pregnancy, failed to heed the risk of severe bleeding, failed to have appropriate equipment for monitoring, and failed to transfuse her in a timely way, having left the room while she was still bleeding. Dotson had also been investigated in 1993 after Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital of Los Angeles had reported him for being negligent in the treatment of six women.

Dotson had also worked at San Vicente Hospital, a notorious abortion mill that was bought out by Family Planning Associates Medical Group. San Vicente was where Sara Lint, Natalie Meyers, Joyce Ortenzio, Laniece Dorsey, and Mary Pena underwent their fatal abortions.

Margaret Davis died of sickle cell crisis after an abortion performed by Dotson on July 25, 1971.

Despite his appalling record, Dotson, through his Eve Surgical Center, was practicing under the auspices of the National Abortion Federation.

Sources:



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Saturday, June 13, 2026

June 13, 1925: Suicide or Abortion?

On June 13, 1925, 24-year-old Betty Fisher died in the Chicago office of doctors August Goetz and Henry Gautsen. News coverage said that Goetz and Gautsen were spiritualists and faith healers. The pair asserted that Betty had come to them for treatment six months earlier after becoming estranged from her husband, and had died from deliberately drinking poison.

After an inquest, though, the coroner concluded that Betty had actually died from an abortion perpetrated by one or the other of the pair.

The doctors were acquitted on October 16. The source documents don't say why. I've found no evidence that either doctor was involved in any other abortion deaths.

During the first two thirds of the 20th Century, while abortion was still illegal, there was a massive drop in maternal mortality, including mortality from abortion. Most researches attribute this plunge to improvements in public health and hygiene, the development of blood transfusion techniques, and the introduction of antibiotics.

Watch "Abortion or Suicide?" on YouTube.

 external image MaternalMortality.gif
Sources:
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Friday, June 12, 2026

June 12, 1970: "Maternal Indications" Abortion Proves Fatal for Philadelphia Mother

Arlene Francis Hull was an unmarried 24-year-old black woman living in Philadelphia. She discovered she was pregnant in the spring or early summer of 1970.

There is no record of whether Arlene sought out an abortion on her own initiative or whether her doctor recommended it because she has multiple sclerosis (MS) and epilepsy causing grand mal seizures. Whatever the reason for the abortion, due to her health issues her doctor was able to admit her to Jefferson Hospital for an abortion at 15 weeks. 

Though Pennsylvania abortion law didn't specify a "life of the mother" exception, Arlene's doctors felt confident about the legality of their decision. 

Grok indicates that MS symptoms can either become more serious or improve during pregnancy. In 1970 it was treated primarily with corticosteroids for flare-ups. At that time doctors recommended that women with MS avoid pregnancy. Common antiepileptic drugs in 1970 could harm the fetus, leaving doctors to have to balance the risk of seizures and the risks of causing fetal injury. 

The technique chosen was hysterotomy (pictured), which is just a C-section with the intention that the baby not survive. Jefferson Hospital was a major academic medical center, appropriate for any kind of surgery for a high-risk patient. Grok could only theorize as to why such an invasive procedure was chosen. However, in 1970, abortion at 15 weeks was unusual because the fetus was too big to be aborted with a dilation and curettage but the uterus was too small for most doctors to attempt an amniocenteses abortion, which usually wasn't attempted prior to 18 weeks. Saline amniocenteses would also have been an extremely risky procedure even for a healthy woman.

Arlene's abortion was performed at 9:15 am on June 12. By 4:30 pm, Arlene was dead from complications of the thiopental, nitrous oxide, succinyl choline and curare administered for anesthesia. According to Grok, this drug combination was standard for general anesthesia, but might have been a risky choice for a patient with neurological conditions. 

Grok offers the following possible mechanisms of complication leading to Arlene's death:
  • Respiratory Depression or Arrest: Thiopental and nitrous oxide can suppress breathing, particularly if dosing is not carefully titrated. Succinylcholine and curare, which paralyze respiratory muscles, require mechanical ventilation; any delay or failure in intubation could lead to hypoxia.
  • Anaphylaxis or Adverse Reaction: Succinylcholine or curare can trigger allergic reactions or malignant hyperthermia, a rare but fatal condition causing muscle rigidity and fever.
  • Neurological Interaction: Arlene’s epilepsy and MS may have altered her response to anesthesia. For example, succinylcholine can cause prolonged paralysis in patients with neurological disorders, and AEDs may interact with anesthetics, increasing sedation or toxicity.
  • Cardiovascular Collapse: Anesthesia-induced hypotension, combined with Arlene’s compromised health, could have led to shock or cardiac arrest.
Grok did not share my confidence that Pennsylvania doctors would have had no fear of prosecution for performing a hospital abortion on a high-risk patient. 

Sources: 

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