Four Safe and Legal Deaths in the 1970s and 1980s

On December 2, 1977, 29-year-old Jacqueline Bailey was injected with saline by Dr. Eboreime for an instillation abortion at Pacific Glen Hospital in Los Angeles County. Five hours after Jackie expelled the dead baby, her condition appeared grave. Shortly after midnight, she was transferred to Memorial Hospital of Glendale. Doctors at Memorial suspected a uterine laceration, so they performed exploratory surgery. The bleeding was so profuse that they then performed a hysterectomy in a last-ditch attempt to save her life. Jackie died just before sunrise on December 3. The autopsy report found that Jackie's uterus had ruptured during the abortion, and that her uterine artery had been lacerated. She had bled to death from her injuries. Two years earlier, Cheryl Tubbs had also bled to death from a ruptured uterus caused by a saline abortion at Pacific Glen.

Cora Lewis is one of six abortion deaths currently attributed to Inglewood Women's Hospital (aka Inglewood Women's Clinic) in Los Angeles County. Twenty-three-year-old Cora had her safe and legal abortion at Inglewood on November 4, 1983. She had gonorrhea at the time of the abortion, which led to inflammation of the cervix and uterus. Cora developed fever and chills after her abortion, and was finally admitted to a hospital on November 11. She was aggressively treated for pneumonia, including surgery, but died December 3. The coroner attributed her death to pneumonia and lung abscess contributed to by the uterine and cervical inflammation. Other abortion deaths at Inglewood include Yvonne Tanner, Kathy Murphy, Belinda Byrd, Lynette Wallace, and Elizabeth Tsuji.

Abortionist Andre Nehorayoff was disciplined over the 1983 abortion death of 18-year-old "Ellen."Nehorayoff performed a second-trimester safe and legal abortion on November 29, 1983. She was 18 years old and in the second trimester of pregnancy. Nehorayoff left the medical history section of her chart blank.Nehorayoff entered the following note in Ellen's chart: "Pt. is advised that she might pass some tissue, contact me at any time or if she bleeds heavily." So evidently he was aware that he'd preformed an incomplete abortion.Two days later, Nehorayoff recieved a lab report that detected only placental tissue in the specimen from Ellen's abortion, indicating that there was still a lot of fetal tissue in Ellen's body. He noted no attempt to notify Ellen of the incomplete abortion.At 5:10 AM on December 3, Ellen was rushed to an emergency room. She was already in a coma upon admission. An hour and 10 minutes later, she was pronounced dead. At autopsy there was a portion of the fetal left leg protruding from the uterus, and the cause of death was determined to be from hemorrhaging due to the incomplete abortion. Nehorayoff was also disciplined regarding Patient F, whom he left in a recovery room following her abortion on December 15, 1979, without any monitoring. She turned blue and no pulse could be detected. She was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Teresa Causey clutched her mother's hand during her safe and legal abortion by Joe Wesley McDaniel on December 3, 1988. Her mother later said that 17-year-old Teresa's last words were, "Oh, mama, mama, it hurts so much!" Then she lost consciousness on the abortion table. When McDaniel was unable to awaken her, he tried smelling salts, slapped her face, then tried to reach another doctor before finally calling an ambulance. Teresa had two perforations of her uterus and two lacerated veins. She died of massive hemorrhage the day of her abortion. An investigation found that McDaniel had been operating in an unlicensed facility, and that he had broken the law requiring abortions after 13 weeks be done in a hospital; Teresa had been 15 weeks pregnant with a little boy. No charges were pressed against McDaniel for Teresa's death, the illegal abortion, or the unlicensed facility. Teresa left behind two children.