Typical or Atypical? Four Abortion Deaths

On February 6, 1919, 22-year-old homemaker Edna Griffith died at Chicago's Passavant Hospital from septic pneumonia initiating from complications of an abortion perpetrated by a person who was never identified.

On January 28, 1952, 35-year-old Betty Hellman was admitted to the Tinker Air Force Base hospital in critical condition, suffering from pain and low blood pressure. Her red blood count was very low, and her white count very high, indicating infection. She admitted to having undergone an abortion on January 25 perpetrated by a woman she identified as Jane McDaniel White. She gave White's address as the place she had gone for the abortion. Betty said that White had put her off for several days while she got over her fear of undergoing the abortion. She promised White $100, but only paid her $50. White initiated the abortion with some kind of packing and sent Betty home. Betty became very ill, and called White, who with her daughter came to Betty's home and "scraped her out". White said that Betty had been taking abortifacients and that she had only been treating her for ptomaine poisoning. Betty died on February 6 from peritonitis. Her husband had managed to rush home from Tokyo in time to see his wife before she died. An autopsy verified that an abortion had been perpetrated and had caused Betty's death. The criminal case against White went well until the defense managed to have the Betty's deathbed statement, given on January 31, inadmissible because it couldn't be proved satisfactorily that Betty believed herself to be near death. With the deathbed statement thrown out, the case was dropped. This had been White's third arrest for abortion charges. She had been convicted in 1947 but the conviction was thrown out on a technicality based on how advanced the girl's pregnancy had been.

Seventeen-year-old Laniece Dorsey underwent a safe and legal abortion at a Family Planning Associates Medical Group facility in Orange County, California, on February 6, 1986. FPA is a National Abortion Federation member facility. Laniece lapsed into a coma, was transferred to a nearby hospital, and died later that day. The Orange County Sheriff's Department medical examiner blamed the death on cardiorespiratory arrest due to the anesthesia, although he also found abnormal and inflamed tissue in Laniece's uterus. Laniece wasn't the first or last young woman to die from abortion at a facility owned by FPA head honcho Edward Campbell Allred. Other patients known to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include  Denise Holmes, Patricia Chacon, Mary Pena, Josefina Garcia, Joyce Ortenzio, Tami Suematsu, Deanna Bell, Susan Levy, Christina Mora, Nakia Jorden, Maria Leho, Kimberly Neil, Maria Rodriguez, and Chanelle Bryant.

Life Dynamics lists 26-year-old Kathy Davis on their "Blackmun Wall of safe and legal abortions.
Citing Kathy's death certificate, Life Dynamics says that Kathy died at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital of heart failure and hypertension following a legal abortion on February 6, 1987.