Five anniversaries

Today's anniversaries start with a criminal abortion death, and move forward in time to a safe, legal abortion death in 2005. I leave it to the reader to decide if Barbaralee, Risaruio, Angela, and Oriene were somehow better off than Grace Iorio.

On June 7, 1930, 27-year-old Grace Iorio underwent an illegal abortion in the Chicago home of midwife Stepina Pazkiewicz. On June 14, Grace died at her home. On June 15, Pazkiewicz was arrested for her role in Grace's death.

Eighteen-year-old newlywed Barbaralee Davis called a local women's group for a safe and legal abortion referral. They sent her to a member of the newly foundedNational Abortion Federation, Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois. After the abortion, performed June 14, 1977 by Hope Medical Director Hector Zavalos, she was sent home, pale and bleeding and needing her sister's help to get to the car. Barbaralee slept in the back seat the whole way homem then her sister helped her to bed. When Barbaralee's sister checked on her several hours later, she was unresponsive. She was rushed to the Pickneyville hospital, where an emergency hysterectomy was attempted to save her life. Barbaralee died during the surgery, leaving one child motherless.
The autopsy found the face and spinal column of Barbaralee's baby embedded in a hole in her uterus. There were two quarts of blood in her abdomen. Barbaralee had bled to death. Hope Clinic for Women was not only permitted to remain in operation, it was allowed to remain a member in good standing of the National Abortion Federation.

A lawsuit filed by Eduardo Bermeo alleged that his wife, Rosario Bermeo, age 30, died following a safe and legal abortionperformed by Dr. Joseph B. Shapse at Prospect Hospital in New York June 14, 1983. Shapse contended he had no responsibility for actions of the certified nurse anesthetist, and no responsibility to monitor and evaluate Rosario's condition during and immediately after the abortion. Therefore, he said, he was not to blame for her death from respiratory and cardiac arrest.

Angela Hall, a 27-year-old mother of five, arrived on June 11, 1991, for a safe, legal abortion at Thomas Tucker's office in Alabama. One of Tucker's employees, Joy Davis, screened Angela and felt that she had risk factors that made abortion in an office setting unsafe. Joy got on the phone with Tucker and indicated that she felt that Angela should be referred to a hospital. Tucker told Davis that "we need the money" and ordered her to prep Angela. After the abortion, Angela suffered obvious complications, including an alarming about of bleeding, but when a nurse called an ambulance, Tucker canceled the ambulance. As Angela's condition deteriorated, the nurse pleaded with Tucker, who finally cussed her out, told her to go ahead and call an ambulance, and left the building, abandoning his patient. Angela was taken to the hospital, where she suffered respiratory failure, clotting, and sepsis. She died just before midnight June 14.

Oriane Shevin, age 34, died June 14, 2005 of infection following off-label use of RU-486 for a safe and abortion in California in 2005. Oriane got the drugs at the Eve Surgical Center, a member of the National Abortion Federation. She took the mifeprestone on June 9 and vaginally inserted the misoprostol on June 10. The coroner‘s office was not able to determine if a physician saw or examined her at the abortion facility. The doctor at the center, Christopher Dotson, has a spotted history. At the time of Oriane‘s abortion, he had not yet completed eight years medical board probation for gross negligence and incompetence in causing the death of a patient in 1992. Dotson had also been investigated in 1993 after Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital of Los Angeles had reported him for being negligent in the treatment of six women.