Lethal Doctors, 1914 and 1988

A Doctor's Work in 1914

In 1914, when Mrs. Julia Reed's eighteen-year-old daughter Ester reported that her period did not arrive, Mrs. Reed took her to two people to find out whether she was pregnant, then bought pills to induce an abortion. These didn't work, so she took Ester to Dr. J.L. Neuman, who demanded payment of $150 for an abortion. Julia protested, and Neuman told her to sell furniture and clothes to get the money. She dickered him down to $50, though he complained about it. He started the abortion at his practice, then completed it two days later at the family's home.

His efforts clearly weren't even worth the $50, much less then $150 he'd wanted, since he managed to fatally injure Ester, who died of septicemia on June 8, 1914 at Park Avenue Hospital. The secret abortion intended to keep Esther's father from kicking her out of the house thus removed her from the family permanently. Neuman was arrested January 11, 1917, and though the case went to trial, the source does not indicate the outcome.

One of Many Victims of a Reputable Chain of Clinics, 1988

The survivors of 32-year-old Joyce Ortenzio filed suit against Edward Allred, his Family Planning Associates Medical Group (FPA), the San Vicente Hospital FPA facility, and abortionist Ruben Marmet. Joyce went to San Vicente for laminaria insertion by Marmet on June 7, 1988. Later, Marmet performed a safe and legal abortion, but did not remove all of the fetal parts from Joyce's uterus. The next day, June 8, Joyce was found dead in her home. The cause of death was an overdose of the drug amitriptyline, infection from fetal parts that were not removed during the abortion and septic shock. Joyce left three children motherless.

Joyce is one of many women to die at this NAF facility after theNational Abortion Federation was founded. Other patients known to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include:

• Denise Holmes, age 24, 1970
• Patricia Chacon, age 16, 1984
• Mary Pena, age 43, 1984
• Josefina Garcia, age 37, 1985
• Lanice Dorsey, age 17, 1986
• Tami Suematsu, age 19, 1988
• Deanna Bell, age 13, 1992
• Susan Levy, age 30, 1992
• Christina Mora, age 18, 1994
• Ta Tanisha Wesson, age 24, 1995
• Nakia Jorden, 1998
• Maria Leho, 1999
• Kimberly Neil, 2000
• Maria Rodriguez, age 22, 2000
• Chanelle Bryant, age 22, 2004

I suspect that the reason the deaths appear in clusters is because those are years that researchers checked for lawsuits, rather than that these are all the women and girls who died at Allred facilities. Anybody with the time and resources to do so could probably uncover other deaths Allred and his staff have managed to sweep under the carpet.