Two Safe-n-Legal Abortion Deaths: One Wasn't Resuscitated; the Other Wasn't Pregnant

Twenty-four-year-old Synthia Dennard went to Biogenetics in Chicago for a safe, legal abortion and tubal ligation on September 7, 1989. The surgery was performed by Inno Obasi. Synthia began to hemorrhage during the surgery. A medical investigation later found that Obasi had "failed to summon help in a timely manner; refused to allow trained and skilled paramedics to attend to Synthia; refused to allow paramedics to transport Synthia to a hospital in a timely manner" and otherwise "allowed Synthia to bleed to death." Synthia's survivors had to file a court order to keep the facility from destroying her records. An autopsy revealed that instead of removing a section of Synthia's fallopian tube, Obasi had removed a portion of an artery. The autopsy also revealed that Synthia, mother of two, had not even been pregnant at the time of her abortion.

Tanya Williamson went to Moshe Hachamovitch's abortion facility on September 7, 1996, for the second day of a second-trimester abortion. Hachamovtich estimated that she was almost 14 weeks pregnant. She was doped up on Brevital for the procedure, then moved, still anesthetized and non-responsive, to the recovery room, where the pulse oximeter to measure her blood oxygen was taken off. After about 15 minutes in recovery, her blood pressure and pulse dropped and her breathing became shallow. Her vital signs continued to deteriorate, to the point where her blood pressure was too low to measure with a cuff.. Finally somebody summed Hachamovitch, who examined Tanya in recovery, started a new IV with D5W and Ephedrine, then told the recovery room nurse to do CPR, and somebody to call Emergency Medical Services (EMS). EMS Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) was dispatched at 2:40 and arrived at 2:41 to find Tanya looking dead, with no pulse, dilated pupils, and a bluish color to her skin.  Although Hachamovitch had the drugs on-site needed to treat Tonya's cardiac arrest, he didn't use them, nor did he use the EKG monitor and cardiac defibrillator that he had on hand. As the medics took over the discovered that the abortion clinic staff had been trying to revive Tanya with broken equipment, causing her to go without oxygen for an extended period. Competent help had arrived too late, and Tonya died.