1974: "Therapeutic" abortion proves fatal for California mother

Life Dynamics lists 38-year-old Bonnie Fix on their "Blackmun Wall" of women killed by safe, legal abortions. LDI put together the following information on Bonnie's death:

Bonnie, a mother of four, was admitted to Fresno Community Hospital on February 7, 1974.

Doctors there performed an abdominal hysterectomy on Bonnie, removing her uterus along with her unborn baby.

Codes used at the state registrar's office inidcate that an abortion had been induced on Bonnie for medical reasons.

Several days after her hysterectomy, Bonnie began to suffer bowel and lung problems.

She suffered cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead on February 12.

We don't know enough about Bonnie's case to know if the baby was killed as an unfortunate side-effect of a medically necessary hysterectomy -- say, for aggressive uterine cancer -- or if Bonnie and/or her doctor just thought an abortion was the easiest thing to do in her case and used a medical condition as justification. The fact that such a drastic method as hysterectomy was chosen tends to support the former, but Bonnie's age and the propensity at the time for abortionists to do the most drastic of surgeries as a matter of course -- in many cases as fertility control -- tends to support the latter.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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