March 3 Patricia Chacon: One of Sixteen FPA Deaths

The National Abortion Federation, an organization of abortion practitioners and their for-profit and non-profit abortion facilities, is highly reputable in abortion-rights circles. Sixteen-year-old Patricia Chacon lost her life after placing her trust in one of those NAF members. 

Patricia had no way of knowing, as she climbed onto the abortion table at Avalon Hospital, that 24-year-old Denise Holmes had died at Avalon in December of 1970. She also had no way of knowing that she would become the second of more than a dozen women for whom a safe, legal abortion at Family Planning Associates would be the last choice she would ever make.

Patricia, 24 weeks pregnant, underwent a safe and legal abortion at the hands of either Edward Allred or Leslie Orleans at Allred's Avalon Hospital in Los Angeles on the morning of March 3, 1984. The abortion took five hours to complete.

Patricia retained fetal tissues, so she was scheduled for a second procedure that afternoon to complete the abortion.

There are conflicting stories as to what happened next. Allred claimed that Patricia died of an embolism during the second surgery. (He pronounced her dead at 4:30 PM.) Patricia's parents claim that their child bled to death while left unattended.

An autopsy found numerous catgut sutures in Patricia's vagina and hemorrhage in her uterus. Death was attributed to disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (a clotting disorder) due to abortion-induced amniotic fluid embolism (amniotic fluid in the bloodstream). Patricia's parents sued Allred and Orleans for their daughter's death. Since one of the things DIC causes is massive hemorrhage, Patricia's parents are probably correct in blaming her death on blood loss.

Edward Campbell Allred

Avalon Hospital was part of Edward Allred's Family Planning Associates Medical Group, a National Abortion Federation member facility.

Other women known to have died after abortion at the chain of facilities founded by Allred include:

• Denise Holmes, age 24, 1970
• Mary Pena, age 43, 1984
• Josefina Garcia, age 37, 1985
• Laniece Dorsey, age 17, 1986
• Joyce Ortenzio, age 32, 1988
• Tami Suematsu, age 19, 1988
• Susan Levy, age 30, 1992
• Deanna Bell, age 13, 1992
• Christine 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