April 22, 1923: Doctor Indicted in Chicago Abortion Death

On April 22, 1923, 30-year-old Daisy Anna Singerland died at Chicago's Robert Burns Hospital from complications of a criminal abortion performed earlier that day.  

On June 1, 54-year-old Dr. James W. Lipscomb was indicted for felony murder in Daisy's death. I have been unable to determine the final outcome of the case.

Watch From the Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database on YouTube.

April 21, 1912: Likely Self-Induced in Chicago

In the morning of April 21, 1912, 38-year-old Mrs. Grace Peters died at Columbus Hospital in Chicago. She had been taken to the hospital after having taken very ill in her home the previous Thursday.

When asked who had perpetrated the abortion, Grace refused to say. There was some conjecture that she had perpetrated the abortion herself.

Watch Likely Self-Induced in Chicago on YouTube.
Watch Likely Self-Induced in Chicago on Rumble.

Source: "Criminal Operations are Fatal to Two Women," The Inter Ocean, April 22, 1912

April 21, 1955: Pro-Choice Icon's Forgotten Victim

Self-styled "Doctor" Harvey Karman

Nearly two decades before the "Mothers Day Massacre" pulled off with Kermit "House of Horrors" Gosnell in Philadelphia, 30-year-old Harvey Karman was working at the University of California at Los Angeles, seeking a doctorate in psychology. At times he claimed that he was an instructor at the university, but his instruction duties were likely limited. 

He was not licensed to practice medicine.

The Abortion

Around early February of 1955, 26-year-old Joyce Yvonne Maynard Johnson told her husband, Ben, that she was pregnant. The couple already had two children, and they discussed an abortion. 

Joyce had been a promising young woman who had been a member of the Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority when she attended the University of California at Los Angeles in the late 1940s. 

Ben was friends with Harvey Karman. Karman had a passion for writing, inventing, performing medical experiments on rattlesnakes, and, as we already know, abortion. He agreed to perform an abortion on the young homemaker. His fee was $150, which was a substantial sum for somebody whose only income at the time was $180 a month for tutoring teens in remedial reading. 

Joyce Maynard Johnson

On April 6, 1955, Karman met Joyce in a motel room in Westwood, California while Ben waited outside in the car. Using a speculum, Karman inserted a nutcracker into Joyce in order to perform an abortion. Karman walked Joyce out to the car, he said, and told Ben, "Get her to a doctor." He reportedly returned the $150 abortion fee to cover Joyce's inevitable medical bills.

On April 8, Joyce's husband took her to St. Joseph's Hospital. She was examined by a Dr. Moss who diagnosed her as suffering from "an infected criminal abortion." The dead fetus was still in her uterus. She expelled it while at St. Joseph's.

On April 13, Joyce was transferred to General Hospital for specialized treatment. She died there on April 21. An autopsy was performed, and Joyce's death blamed on bronchial pneumonia brought on by the septic abortion.

Karman was arrested. He admitted to perpetrating the abortion but said, "I only did it because she begged me to do it." Then again, Karman clearly needed the money.

The Trial

During the trial, a photograph of the autopsy was available, but the district attorney didn't display it. He instead told the jury, "you can look at it up in the jury room if you are so inclined--it's an autopsy picture--I'm not going to show it to you because some people don't like to see things like that--she was 26 years old April 6th. She was a girl in good health. She was pregnant. She wanted to do something about having an abortion for this pregnancy."

The district attorney also told the jury, "Frankly, I don't know how you feel about this matter of abortion--it is a matter of difference of opinion. Some people say well, people can't afford it, it's all right to have an abortion. Some people say if the woman's health won't stand it it's all right to have an abortion. Our law says it's all right to have an abortion if her health is of such nature she can't have a baby. Some people think abortions are all right. Some people are absolutely against all of them. If you want to know the truth, I'm pretty much against all abortions myself, I think it's a terrible thing for a girl to be talked into this."

Harvey was convicted on the illegal abortion charge but acquitted on the accompanying murder charge for a reason that would only make sense to a jury. He was given a one-to-ten-year prison sentence.

The Appeal

The appeals court found it "improper for the district attorney to express his personal belief as to all abortion," but noted that since the jury was admonished to ignore the comment Karman had no grounds for appeal in the fact that the DA made the comment.

Karman's defense called a Dr. Gilbert as an expert. He reviewed the autopsy report and medical records, an opined that Joyce did not die from a septic abortion. He was paid $150 for his testimony, ironically the same amount Joyce paid for the abortion.

The defense also appealed on the grounds that the the DA unduly prejudiced the jury by bringing out in cross-examining Karman that he'd been convicted previously of a felony. The appeals court ruled that this was proper impeachment of a witness.

Karman's defense further argued that Joyce's husband and friend, Patricia, were improperly granted immunity after they originally refused to testify.

Karman's defense also claimed that the prosecution failed to prove that the abortion wasn't necessary to save Joyce's life. But the appeals court found that the testimony of Ben and Patricia that Joyce had been in good health settled that matter. Of course, pure logic would prove that matter, since Joyce was seeking an illegal abortion from an amateur in a motel room. Had her life been in danger, an ob/gyn would have been able to admit her to a hospital and perform the abortion there.

An appeals court found that the district attorney's statement that what defendant did was "absolute butchery" was fair argument on the facts, and not an unduly prejudicious statement. It came out in the case that Joyce's husband was dating another woman and therefore had an interest in Joyce securing an abortion.

The Pardon

Though Karman had finished serving his sentence before Jerry Brown was sworn in as California Governor in 1975, Brown was enamored enough of Karman's work to issue him a pardon.

Joyce's abortion was unusual in that it was performed by an amateur, rather than by a doctor, as was the case with perhaps 90% of criminal abortions. However, it also stands out because Harvey Karman was treated like a real doctor by the abortion establishment. He was invited to train abortionists, and was celebrated by abortion advocates for having invented a suction cannula designed specifically for early abortions. Despite being an amateur, and despite the death of Joyce Johnson and the fiasco in Philadelphia, on his death Karman was eulogized as a champion of safe abortions.

Watch Pro-Choice Icon's Forgotten Victim on YouTube.

Sources:

• "Illegal Operation on Friend's Wife Jails Psychology Student at UCLA," Los Angeles Mirror-News, April 20, 1955
• "Abortion Fatal," (San Pedro, CA) News-Pilot, April 23, 1955
• "UCLA Teacher Held On Murder Charge," Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, June 11, 1955
• "Man found guilty of abortion death of L.A. housewife," (Palo Alto, CA) Peninsula Times Tribune, September 5, 1955
• "New Trial Denied In Operation Case," Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, September 7, 1955
• "Gets Prison in Death Surgery," Los Angeles Mirror, October 13, 1955
• "Man Gets Prison Term for Illegal Operation," Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1955
• People v. Karman, Crim. No. 5583. Second Dist., Div. Three. Nov. 13, 1956

April 20, 1939: Dillinger's Doc Does Fatal Abortion

Dr. Clinton E. May

Dr. Clinton E. May had crossed paths with the law when he harbored John Dillinger. In an apparent attempt to keep a low profile, he relocated to California after his release and didn't bother to get licensed to practice medicine, but rather set up housekeeping, and an abortion practice, with a woman in San Francisco using the aliases Cy Dalton and Miss Ralston,

On April 12, 1939, a woman called St. Joseph's Hospital and anonymously told a doctor there that a woman had suffered uterine damage in an abortion. The doctor said to send the woman to the hospital immediately.

The woman, 30-year-old Doris Alexander, arrived at the hospital in a taxi. She was in critical condition. There, she told hospital staff, her husband, and the police about the abortion. Based on the information Doris had provided, police raided Clinton May's apartment the following day, finding a makeshift operating table, abundant surgical instruments typically used in abortions, and parts of a human fetus of about three or four months of gestation that was not Doris' fetus.

May was arrested and taken to the hospital, where Doris tentatively identified him. She never mentioned a woman being involved in the abortion. Doris died on April 20, and police arrested a woman named Frances Zoffel, whom they said was the mysterious "Miss Ralston."

May and Zoffel were charged with murder and conspiracy. May was convicted of second-degree murder, Zoffel of conspiracy. Zoffel was able to get a new trial on the grounds that she was not "Miss Ralston" and that there was no evidence linking her to May's practice, although she had been implicated in abortion rings in the past and would be implicated again in the future.

Watch Dillinger's Doctor Does Fatal Abortion on YouTube.
Watch Dillinger's Doctor Does Fatal Abortion on Rumble.

Sources:

• "Crime Doctor Held in Death" The Oklahoman, Apr. 21, 1938
• "Dillinger Doctor, Nurse Convicted," The San Antonio Light, Oct. 27, 1938
• "Dillinger Surgeon is Indicted in S. F.," San Mateo Times, May 4, 1938
• "Doctor Sent to San Quentin," Oakland Tribune, Oct. 29, 1938
• "Dillinger Doctor Faces Prison," Oct. 27, 1938
• "Dr. May, Woman To Be Charged," Oakland Tribune, Apr. 21, 1938
• "Aid to Dillinger Doctor Sought," Oakland Tribune, Apr. 15, 1938
• People v. Zoffel, Crim. No. 2052. First Appellate District, Division One. October 20, 1939

April 20, 1933: A Doctor When the Pills Didn't Work

In Seattle, Washington in February of 1933, Mary Agnes McNeil, a 22-year-old unmarried grocery store clerk, discovered that she was pregnant. Mary informed her boyfriend of the pregnancy, and he got her some pills supposed to cause an abortion, but they didn't work. She tried another round of different pills in March.

On April 8, Mary went to a nursing home operated by a nurse to ask about an abortion. The nurse informed the woman and her lover that Dr. E. T. Martin or another doctor would be able to perform an abortion.

On April 11, Mary's boyfriend went to Dr. Martin's office and consulted with him. On Dr. Martin's instructions, Mary's boyfriend brought her back the next morning, a Wednesday, for an examination. Mary was in Dr. Martin's office for about half an hour. Dr. Martin then told Mary's boyfriend that the total fee, including a stay at the nursing home until Saturday night, would be $75. He then instructed the boyfriend to take Mary to the nursing home, which he did that afternoon.

On Friday the 14th, Dr. Martin performed a curettage on Mary to remove the fetus. The nurse claimed that she had no idea what Dr. Martin was planning to do.

After the D&C, Mary became alarmingly ill. Dr. Martin said that he himself was not in proper physical condition to care for the patient, so he summoned a Dr. Templeton. Dr. Templeton evidently cared for Mary at the nursing home until April 19, a Wednesday, when he advised staff to transfer Mary to Virginia Mason hospital. She died the following morning of general peritonitis following an incomplete septic abortion.

Dr. Martin, with some corroboration from the nurse, said that Mary already had a rapid pulse and fever when she first consulted with him. He also said that she was bleeding vaginally already. Dr. Martin said that Mary had told him she'd missed three periods, taken abortifacients, had fallen, and had a chronic bowel condition.

Dr. Martin testified that he'd recommended hospitalization, but that Mary wanted to avoid the possible publicity surrounding a hospitalization. It was then that he'd decided to send her to the nursing home instead. He also testified that she'd been bleeding from the 12th until the 14th, when he'd performed a curettage. He said that this curettage was necessary to treat her fever and bleeding.

Dr. Martin was convicted of manslaughter in Mary's death, but the nurse was acquitted.

Sources:

• 178 Wash. 290, 34 P.2d 914
• Supreme Court of Washington. State v Martin No. 25153.July 23, 1934
• Death certificate

April 19, 1977: Fatal Abortion at San Jose Hospital

Mary Paredez was a 26 years old Nicaraguan immigrant when she underwent an abortion at San Jose Hospital on April 19, 1977.

During the procedure, Mary's uterus was perforated. She began to hemorrhage.

Less than seven hours later, she was dead.

The autopsy found 2500 cc of blood in Mary's abdomen.

Watch Fatal Abortion in California Hospital on YouTube.

---

Sources: California Death Certificate No. 77-051142; Santa Clara County (CA) Autopsy Report No. CA77-364

April 18, 1944: Abortion-Rights Death Claim Confirmed

I stumbled across a video about a self-induced abortion death -- one I was able to verify by searching for a death certificate. Winifred "Win" Mayer died on April 18, 1944, at around 2:00 in the afternoon. Her death certificate attributes her death to shock "due to attempt at criminal abortion self inflected." She was in the second month of her pregnancy. The autopsy showed cuts in her uterus, hemorrhage, and congestion of her lungs, liver, and kidneys.

According to the YouTube video, Win was living in military housing in Virginia with her husband and two small children. Her husband, Eddie, worked for the government was about to be deployed overseas for an undetermined amount of time and Win didn't feel prepared to care for a third child while he was away. She already had a son, Peter, who was not quite three years old and a 10-month-old baby girl, Judy. Win was college educated and financially comfortable, according to her granddaughter.

Win's mother, her granddaughter says, was a nurse in New York. Win travelled to New York to use her mother's connections with doctors who performed criminal abortions. For some reason this arrangement fell through. Win's father, who was a doctor, refused to perpetrate the abortion. Win's daughter said that Win's French stepmother told her that women in France "take care of this themselves." Win returned to Virginia.

Whether she got specific instructions from her stepmother or another person or just came up with an approach on her own, Win put the children down for their naps, went into the bathroom, and attempted the abortion. Eddie came home after work and found her dead.

Mary Calderone

There is no record of why Win chose to abort her unborn baby. There is also no record of why she didn't pursue a professional abortionist, as most abortion-minded women did. 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. 

April 18, 1971: They Didn't Tell Her There Was No Baby

Grok AI illustration

"Sandra" is one of the women Life Dynamics identifies on their "Blackmun Wall" as having been killed by a safe and legal abortion.

Sandra was 18 years old when she underwent a first-trimester abortion procedure in New York, under the state's liberal abortion law.

Three days later, on April 18, 1971, Sandra killed herself. Before her death, she had expressed guilt about having "killed her baby."

Tragically, nobody had contacted Sandra to give her the results of the pathology report on what had been removed from her uterus. There had been no embryo. Sandra had not actually been pregnant.

Abortion is associated with an increase in all forms of violent death: accident, homicide, and suicide.

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
• “Haley Mason”, age 22, who overdosed on pills and alcohol in April of 2001
• 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

The 1970 liberalization of abortion had made New York an abortion mecca until the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling that abortionists could legally set up shop in any state of the union. In addition to "Danielle," 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:

• Carmen Rodriguez, July, 1970, salt solution intended to kill the fetus accidentally injected into her bloodstream
• Barbara Riley, July, 1970, sickle-cell crisis triggered by abortion recommended by doctor due to her sickle cell disease
• Pearl Schwier, July, 1970, anesthesia complications
• "Amanda" Roe, September, 1970, sent back to her home in Indiana with an untreated hole poked in her uterus
• Maria Ortega, October, 1970, fetus shoved through her uterus into her pelvic cavity then left there
• "Kimberly" Roe, December, 1970, cardiac arrest during abortion
• "Amy" Roe, January, 1971, massive pulmonary embolism
• "Andrea" Roe, January, 1971, overwhelming infection
• "Sandra" Roe, April, 1971, committed suicide due to post-abortion remorse
• "Anita" Roe, May, 1971, bled to death in her home during process of outpatient saline abortion
• Margaret Smith, June 1971, hemorrhage from multiple lacerations during outpatient hysterotomy abortion
• "Annie" Roe,, June, 1971, cardiac arrest during anesthesia
• "Audrey" Roe, July, 1971, cardiac arrest during abortion
• "Vicki" Roe, August, 1971, post-abortion infection
• "April" Roe, August, 1971, death after saline abortion
• "Barbara" Roe, September, 1971, cardiac arrest after saline injection for abortion
• "Tammy" Roe, October, 1971, massive post-abortion infection
• Carole Schaner, October, 1971, hemorrhage from multiple lacerations during outpatient hysterotomy abortion
• "Roseanne" Roe, February, 1971, vomiting with seizures causing pneumonia after saline abortion
• "Connie" Roe, March, 1972, cardiac arrest during abortion
• "Julie" Roe, April, 1972, holes torn in her uterus and bowel
• "Roxanne," May, 1972, convulsions and death at start of abortion
• "Robin" Roe, May, 1972, lingering abortion complications
• Pamela Modugno, May, 1972, air in her bloodstream

LDI Sources: "Maternal Mortality Associated With Legal Abortion in New York State: Jul. 1, 1970 - Jun. 30, 1972; Berger, Tietze, Pakter, Katz, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 43:3, March 1974, 321

April 17, 1998: Unheeded Pleas, Hemorrhage Death

Those insist that legalization of abortion is necessary to keep our daughters safe might want to speak to Lou Ann Herron's father, Mike Gibb, who silently wept in the courtroom as he listened to witnesses describe how his 33-year-old daughter bled to death on April 17, 1998  after a late abortion at the now defunct A-Z Women's Center.

Seven Ultrasounds

Medical assistant Sylvia Aragon wept on the witness stand as she said that Lou Ann's pregnancy was "too far along" for an abortion. The ultrasound Aragon did on April 9 showed a 26-week fetus, but Dr. John Biskind kept ordering more and more ultrasound scans to try to get one that would document the pregnancy as being early enough for the abortion to be legal. A total of seven ultrasounds were done before an estimate of 23 weeks was obtained the day prior to the abortion. 

Lou Ann's Pleas

The abortion was performed at 1:30 p.m. Biskind, his lawyer said, noted a small amount of blood on the sheets when he checked on Lou Ann after the abortion, but that he was not concerned because bleeding is normal after an abortion. Two medical assistants, however, testified that Lou Ann was very frightened about her condition as she lay in recovery. She became combative and anxious. She reported that her legs were going numb. She cried out in pain as she lay in a puddle of blood, begging to know what was wrong with her. These, emergency physician John Gallagher noted, are all clear signs of severe blood loss. 

Gallagher, who trains paramedics for the Phoenix Fire Department, said that the records he reviewed clearly indicated that Lou Ann's condition was life threatening and that Biskind should have recognized the severity of her injuries. Her medical records clearly indicated serious trouble at 1:25 p.m., 16 minutes after Lou Ann had been taken to the recovery room. Gallagher said that had he been treating Lou Ann, he would have ordered more IV fluids and blood immediately, and summoned an ambulance to take her to a hospital where she could be treated in a properly equipped operating room.

Lou Ann Herron

Instead of recognizing the danger his patient was in, Gallagher noted, Biskind instead tried to calm Lou Ann and reassure her that she would be "just fine." He tinkered with her IV (complaining that there was no qualified nurse on staff to do this), and left the building at around 3:45 p.m..

Clinic administrator Carole Stuart-Schadoff had a staffer page Biskind 25 minutes later when Lou Ann's condition worsened. Biskind did not return to the clinic, but told staff to call 911. Prosecutors estimate that by the time paramedics were summoned, Lou Ann had lost 2 to 3 liters of blood.

What the Medics Found

When the rescue crew arrived, Phoenix fire captain Brian Tobin testified, Lou Ann appeared to be dead. Nobody at the clinic seemed aware of how grave her condition was, he said, and nobody seemed to be helping her in any way. The only thing that anybody had done for her was put on an oxygen mask. 

Evidently somebody had removed Lou Ann's IV, because there wasn't one in place to allow life-saving medications to be administered. Nobody had put in an endotracheal tube and started "bagging" her to ensure that her body was getting enough oxygen to sustain life. "I very quickly felt that there wasn't a lot of competent medical care going on at the time," Tobin said.

Staff told rescuers that Lou Ann's vital signs were pulse 100, and blood pressure 90/50. "It was very difficult for me to believe that they could get the vital signs of a woman who, even as we walked in the door, looked really dead," Tobin testified.

Lou Ann was pronounced dead a the hospital.

Biskind Held Accountable

John Biskind

Biskind surrendered his license to practice medicine in Arizona after Lou Ann's death in order to stop an ongoing medical board investigation of the circumstances and his handling of the case. However, this was not enough to stop the police investigation. Both Biskind and the clinic's administrator, Carol Stuart-Schadoff, were charged with homicide.  A jury of seven women and one man immediately agreed that the defendants were guilty. It was simply a matter of deciding which charges they were guilty of: the manslaughter charge, or the lesser charge of negligent homicide. It took them 4 1/2 hours to conclude that Biskind was guilty of manslaughter, Stuart-Schadoff of negligent homicide.

Only after the trial was over did members of the jury learn of Biskind's history of misconduct, including the previous death of abortion patient Lisa Bardsley. The jury foreman said that this information "makes me feel better about my decision."

One guilty party, however, was not held accountable: The clinic's owner, Moshe Hachamovitch. Hachamovitch himself performed fatal abortions on Tanya Williamson, Luz Rodriguez, and Christina Goesswein. Jammie Garcia died after a safe and legal abortion at Hachamovitch's Texas facility. That's a total of six dead patients either at his hands or under his supervision.

Watch False Reassurance to Dying Woman on YouTube.

In spite of all this, Business Insider wrote a puff piece about Hachamovitch's clinic in 2024. Read my take on their enthusiasm for Hachamovitch here.

Sources:

• "Scarsdale doctor linked to 6 abortion deaths," White Plains Journal News, January 31, 1999
• "Abort-Clinic Deaths Didn't Nix His Career," New York Post, March 5, 2000
• "Abortion Death Trial Begins," ABC News, January 22, 2001
• "Abortion Doc Guilty In Woman's Death," CBS News, February 20, 2001
• Medical license revocation

April 16, 1920: First of Two Deaths Attributed to Dr. Webber

SUMMARY AND CONTEXT: Rose Seibermann, age 24, died April 16, 1920 after an abortion attributed to Dr. Herman J. Webber. 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.

Grant Hospital in Chicago

On April 16, 1920, 24-year-old Rose Seibenmann (erroneously recorded as Lieberman in the Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database, died at Chicago's Grant Hospital from a criminal abortion. 

Rose's father, Otto Siebenmann, swore out warrants against Dr. Herman J. Webber and Walter Biesse. 

"My daughter and Beisse expected to be married. They had been engaged for four years," Otto told detectives.

Webber testified at the inquest that Rose had come to his office a dozen times but he had not perpetrated an abortion. Beisse said that he had only asked Webber to examine Rose.

Webber was indicted by a Grand Jury in June, and released on $10,000 bond, but the case never went to trial.

Webber was later implicated in the 1927 abortion death of Irene Campbell.

Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. 

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: 

• Homicide in Chicago Interactive
• "Two Women Die; Fiance of One and Doctor Held," Chicago Tribune, April 17, 1920

April 16, 1972: Teen Dies in New York Hospital

"Julie" was only 14 years old when she underwent an abortion in New York, under their liberalized abortion law, on March 26, 1972.

Julie had retained fetal tissue, which doctors tried to remove with additional procedures. During one of these attempts to complete the abortion, Julie's uterus and bowel were perforated.

Julie underwent a partial resection of her bowel and drainage of an abscess. But despite these procedures, she developed septicemia and peritonitis, dying on April 16.

The 1970 liberalization of abortion had made New York an abortion mecca until the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling that abortionists could legally set up shop in any state of the union. In addition to "Julie," 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:

• Carmen Rodriguez, July, 1970, salt solution intended to kill the fetus accidentally injected into her bloodstream
• Barbara Riley, July, 1970, sickle-cell crisis triggered by abortion recommended by doctor due to her sickle cell disease
• "Amanda" Roe, September, 1970, sent back to her home in Indiana with an untreated hole poked in her uterus
• Maria Ortega, October, 1970, fetus shoved through her uterus into her pelvic cavity then left there
• "Kimberly" Roe, December, 1970, cardiac arrest during abortion
• "Amy" Roe, January, 1971, massive pulmonary embolism
• "Andrea" Roe, January, 1971, overwhelming infection
• "Sandra" Roe, April, 1971, committed suicide due to post-abortion remorse
• "Anita" Roe, May, 1971, bled to death in her home during process of outpatient saline abortion
• Margaret Smith, June 1971, hemorrhage from multiple lacerations during outpatient hysterotomy abortion
• "Annie" Roe, June, 1971, cardiac arrest during anesthesia
• "Audrey" Roe, July, 1971, cardiac arrest during abortion
• "Vicki" Roe, August, 1971, post-abortion infection
• "April" Roe, August, 1971, injected with saline for outpatient abortion, went into shock and died
• "Barbara" Roe, September, 1971, cardiac arrest after saline injection for abortion
• "Tammy" Roe, October, 1971, massive post-abortion infection
• Carole Schaner, October, 1971, hemorrhage from multiple lacerations during outpatient hysterotomy abortion
• "Beth" Roe, December, 1971, saline injection meant to kill fetus accidentally injected into her bloodstream
• "Roseann" Roe, February, 1971, vomiting with seizures causing pneumonia after saline abortion
• "Colleen" Roe, March 8, 1972
• "Roxanne," May, 1972, convulsions and death at start of abortion
• "Robin" Roe, May, 1972, lingering abortion complications
• Pamela Modugno, May, 1972, air in her bloodstream

Watch Why Didn't the Legalization Fairy Save Her? on YouTube.
Watch Why Didn't the Legalization Fairy Save Her? on Rumble.

Source: "Maternal Mortality Associated With Legal Abortion in New York State: Jul. 1, 1970 - Jun. 30, 1972," Berger, Tietze, Pakter, Katz, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 43:3, March 1974, 322

April 16, 1972: Teen Dies of Septic Abortion

Grok illustration of Julie in the waiting room

"Julie" is one of the women Life Dynamics identifies on their "Blackmun Wall" as having been killed by a safe and legal abortion.

Julie was only 14 years old when she underwent an abortion in New York, under their liberalized abortion law, on March 26, 1972.

Julie had retained fetal tissue, which doctors tried to remove with additional procedures. During one of these attempts to complete the abortion, Julie's uterus and bowel were perforated.

Julie underwent a partial resection of her bowel and drainage of an abscess. But despite these procedures, she developed septicemia and peritonitis, dying on April 16.

"Maternal Mortality Associated With Legal Abortion in New York State: Jul. 1, 1970 - Jun. 30, 1972," Berger, Tietze, Pakter, Katz, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 43:3, March 1974, 322