1970: Australian woman never made it home for Christmas, thanks to safe, legal abortion

Denise Holmes, a 24-year-old Australian woman living in Texas, decided to undergo a safe and legal abortion at Avalon Hospital in Los Angeles, California, on her way home for Christmas of 1970.

She never made it home.

Denise checked into Avalon Hospital (an abortion facility owned by Edward Campbell Allred) on December 21. Denise suffered an amniotic fluid embolism that carried pieces of fetal bone marrow into her lungs. She was pronounced dead by Edward Allred at Avalon at 5pm.

Denise is the first confirmed abortion death at an Allred facility. She was also the first to die before the National Abortion Federation was founded, with Allred's Family Planning Associates Medical Group as a member. The National Abortion Federation promises that it only welcomes members that adhere to high standards of care, and that "they wouldn't be NAF members if there was something -- if there was a serious problem, and if the complications were -- were serious, you know."



Other abortion patients I know to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include:

• Patricia Chacon, age 16, 1984
  
• Mary Pena, age 43, 1984
  
• Josefina Garcia, age 37, 1985
  
• Lanice Dorsey, age 17, 1986
  
• Joyce Ortenzio, age 32, 1988
  
• Tami Suematsu, age 19, 1988
  
• Susan Levy, age 30, 1992
  
• Deanna Bell, age 13, 1992
  
• Christina Mora, age 18, 1994
  
• Kimberly Neil, 2000
  
• Chanelle Bryant, age 22, 2004

The fact that even after Allred admitted that he's never done a preventability assessment after a patient death to try to prevent similar tragedies in the future never raised the ire of NAF. His facilities are still welcome members. And prochoice groups blithely refer women there:



You can place Denise's death in the context of other abortion deaths in the 1970s, and the years surrounding the 1970s. Can you spot Roe vs. Wade, which the abortion lobby repeatedly assures us made a massive and noticeable impact in the number of women losing their lives to abortion?



For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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