Two tragic anniversaries

"Amy" is one of the women Life Dynamics identifies on their "Blackmun Wall" as having been killed by a legal abortion. Amy was 35 years old when she had a legal abortion on Christmas Eve of 1970. She was 14 weeks pregnant. During the abortion, Amy suffered from a massive pulmonary embolism. Efforts to save her life finally failed, and she died on January 2, 1971, leaving behind two children.

Though Amy was the first woman identified as an abortion victim in 1971, she wasn't the last. Other women to die that year include:

• Cassandra Bleavins
  
• Janet Forster
  
• Doris Grant
  
• Betty Hines
  
• "Annie" Roe
  
• "Andrea" Roe
  
• "Anita" Roe
  
• "April" Roe
  
• "Audrey" Roe
  
• "Barbara" Roe
  
• "Beth" Roe
  
• "Monica" Roe
  
• "Roseann" Roe
  
• "Sandra" Roe
  
• "Tammy" Roe
  
• "Vicki" Roe
  
• LaSandra Russ
  
• Carole Schaner
  
• Margaret Smith
  
• Kathryn Strong

On December 28, 1977, leather shop owner Sherry Emry went to Water Tower Reproductive Center in Chicago for an abortion. Arnold Bickham, who owned the facility, did not have his staff do pathology exams on abortion tissues; instead they threw them away. Because of this, staff did not realize that there had been no fetus in Sherry's uterus.

Sherry was ill on New Years Day of 1978, and her friends urged her to seek medical care. Sherry thought that she just had the flu, so she went to bed. When her friends came to check on her the morning of January 2, they found her dead in her bed. Sherry's fetus had been implanted in her fallopian tube, which ruptured. She bled to death.

Even though, in theory, women who choose abortion should be less likely to die of ectopic pregnancy complications, experience shows that they're actually more likely to die, due to sloppy practices by abortion practitioners.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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