1978: Risky outpatient abortion proves fatal for mother of six

Gloria Small, a 43-year-old mother of six, went to Ronald Tauber for a safe ane legal abortion. Despite Gloria's obesity, asthma, chronic lung disease, and family history of high blood pressure, Tauber elected to perform the 15-week abortion at his Orlando Birthing Center on March 7, 1978.

Gloria's uterus was punctured in the abortion. She died despite an emergency hysterectomy. The medical examiner said that Gloria's medical history should have precluded performing an abortion in an outpatient setting. A court-appointed panel found Tauber negligent in Gloria's death.

Tauber's license was suspended the month Gloria died; this means that if the Centers for Disease Control counted Gloria's death, they would have tabulated it as a death from an illegal abortion. (They count abortions as legal only if they are performed by a physician with an active license.)

Learn more about abortion deaths in the 1970s here.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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