Saturday, December 03, 2005

Four more safe and legal anniversaries

Teresa Causey clutched her mother's hand during her abortion by Joe Wesley McDaniel on December 3, 1988. Her mother later said that 17-year-old Teresa's last words were, "Oh, mama, mama, it hurts so much!" Then she lost consciousness on the abortion table.

When McDaniel was unable to awaken her, he tried smelling salts, slapped her face, then tried to reach another doctor before finally calling an ambulance. Teresa had two perfortions of her uterus and two lacerated veins. She died of massive hemorrhage the day of her abortion.

An investigation found that McDaniel had been operating in an unlicensed facility, and that he had broken the law requiring abortions after 13 weeks be done in a hospital; Teresa had been 15 weeks pregnant. No charges were pressed against McDaniel for Teresa's death, the illegal abortion, or the unlicensed facility. Teresa left behind two children.

On December 2, 1977, 29-year-old Jackie Bailey was injected with saline by Dr. Eboreime for an abortion at Pacific Glen Hospital in Los Angeles County. Five hours after Jackie expelled the dead baby, her condition appeared grave. Shortly after midnight, she was transferred to Memorial Hospital of Glendale.

Doctors at Memorial suspected a uterine laceration, so they performed exploratory surgery. The bleeding was so profuse that they then performed a hysterectomy in a last-ditch attempt to save her life. Jackie died just before sunrise on December 3. The autopsy report found that Jackie's uterus had ruptured during the abortion, and that her uterine artery had been lacerated. She had bled to death from her injuries.

Twenty-three-year-old Cora Mae Lewis, age 23, had her abortion at Inglewood on November 4, 1983. She had gonorrhea at the time of the abortion, which led to inflammation of the cervix and uterus. Cora developed fever and chills after her abortion, and was finally admitted to a hospital on Novmber 11. She was aggressively treated for pneumonia, including surgery, but died December 3. The coroner attributed her death to pneumonia and lung abscess contributed to by the uterine and cervical inflammation.

Cora is one of many deaths currently attributed to Inglewood Women's Hospital (aka Inglewood Women's Clinic) in Los Angeles County. The others are Yvonne Tanner, Kathy Murphy, Belinda Byrd, Lynette Wallace, and Elizabeth Tsuji.

Abortionist Andre Nehorayoff was disciplined over the abortion death of a patient identified by the medical board as "Patient E." Since other accounts of her death refer to her as "Ellen Roe," I will use this psuedonom as well.

Nehorayoff performed an abortion and discharged Ellen from his facility on November 29, 1983. She was 18 years old and in the second trimester of pregnancy. Two days later, Nehorayoff recieved a lab report that detected only placental tissue in the specimen from Ellen's abortion, indicating that there was still a lot of fetal tissue in Ellen's body. Nehorayoff noted no attempt to notify Ellen of the incomplete abortion.

At 5:10 AM on December 3, Ellen was rushed to an emergency room. She was already in a coma upon admission. An hour and 10 minutes later, she was pronounced dead. At autopsy there was a portion of the fetal left leg protruding from the uterus, and the cause of death was determined to be from hemorrhaging due to the incomplete abortion.

Nehorayoff was also disciplined regarding Patient F, whom he left in a recovery room following her abortion on December 15, 1979, without any monitoring. She turned blue and no pulse could be detected. She was pronounced dead at a hospital.

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