Friday, June 26, 2009

Which death outraged the champions of women's lives?

Pamela Colson, age 31, was 12 weeks pregnant when friends drive her to Women's Medical Services in Pensacola, Florida, for a safe and legal abortion on June 26, 1994.

Pamela bled heavily during the drive home. According to her friends, Pamela became unresponsive, so they stopped at a motel. Two passers-by did CPR while Pamela's friends called for an ambulance. Pamela was taken to a hospital where she died after an emergency hysterectomy.

Her autopsy showed: bloodstained fluid in chest and peritoneal space, and "extensive hematoma formation in the pelvic area with the peritoneum denuded from the left gutter area caudually." The surgeon who performed an emergency hysterectomy, trying to save Pamela's life, had removed her uterus at the site of the laceration "so that the laceration was a portion of the incision made to remove the uterus." Her uterus showed extensive hemorrhage and blood clots. Her uterine artery was also injured. Several of Pamela's ribs were fractured, apparently during attempts to resuscitate her; this is common in even properly performed CPR.

The cause of death was given as "irreversible shock from blood loss due to a perforated uterus occurring at the time of an elective abortion." William Keene was tentatively identified as having performed the abortion.

Pamela's fatal abortion was performed at the clinic where abortionist David Gunn was shot dead. But unlike Gunn's death, Pamela's death didn't raise so much as an eyebrow among the champions of women's lives. It took the death of a man to do that. Along with the fact that a dead abortionist is a "Man bites dog" story, whereas abortionists killing women is considered just part of the business.

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