1906 & 1988: Equally Dead

Johanna Faulner, a 40-year-old German immigrant, died June 29, 1906, at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Chicago, from complications of an abortion performed on June 24. Midwife Emily Redeniske was arrested in the death.

Dawn Mendoza underwent a safe, legal abortion at the hands of Edward Rubin at Women's Medical Pavilion in Dobbs Ferry, New York, on June 29, 1988. Dawn, a 28-year-old mother of two, was 22 weeks pregnant. Her brother, who accompanied her, was instructed to wait in a grassy park across the street, and to come back for her at 4 p.m. He returned, as instructed, and was told that Dawn wasn't ready to leave yet, to return in half an hour. When he came back at 5:30, staff told him that his sister was dead. An investigation revealed that after the abortion, Dawn started screaming and gasping for breath. Her blood pressure fell and she stopped breathing. Staff tried unsuccessfully to revive her, but did not call an ambulance. The medical examiner determined that she had died from amniotic fluid embolism, as evidenced by particles of placenta and amniotic fluid in her lungs. This foreign matter in her bloodstream also caused disseminatedintravascular  coaglopathy, a blood clotting problem.