Three Safe, Legal Abortion Deaths

A Saline Abortion in Detroit, 1982

Dr. Youl Choi

Angel Dardie, age 22, left two children motherless when she died on August 3, 1982, of disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (a clotting disorder) after a safe, legal saline abortion performed by Youl Choi at Plymouth General Hospital near Detroit. Angel's mother sued, but was awarded a meager settlement of $6000 from Choi and $2500 from the hospital, roughly half of which was eaten up by legal fees and funeral expenses. Choi was also sued on behalf of two abortion patients who had been left incapacitated by their injures and on behalf of a baby who had been born alive then left in a bucket, delaying medical care until after she had suffered serious injuries.

Delayed Transfer in New York, 1991

Dr. Orrin Moore

Dawn Mack, a 21-year-old clerk, had an abortion performed at National Abortion Federation member facility Eastern Women's Center August 2, 1991.  Dawn, the mother of an infant, was about 15 or 16 weeks into her pregnancy. A doctor inserted laminaria to dilate Dawn's cervix then sent her home. She returned the following day for the procedure. During the abortion, Dawn went stopped breathing. Her oxygen saturation level dropped to 88%. The anesthesiologist, Dr. Aurel Calalb, administered oxygen and Dawn's oxygen level returned to normal. Calalb did not make a note of this incident, nor did he mention it to Dr. Orrin Moore, who was performing the procedure. (Moore later let his New York license expire and relocated to Kansas.)

Dawn was declared stable, with her blood pressure recorded at 8:55 a.m. as 130/80. She was sent to the recovery room just down the hall where her blood pressure was recorded as only 96/60 and her pulse 96. In spite of this alarming sign that Dawn was in severe trouble, nurse Linda Wissbrun noted that Dawn was unusually drowsy then left the recovery room. Several other nurses were present with Dawn, who was at the time the only patient there, but nobody documented attending to the young woman in any way. When Wissbrun returned five minutes later, she found Dawn completely unresponsive. She tried to find a pulse and sent for help.

Eastern's nursing supervisor arrived about five minutes later and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. There was no crash cart or ambu bag immediately available. Dr. Elena Raftopol, another anesthesiologist, arrived at around 9:07 a.m. and began to administer oxygen by ambu-bag, then took Dawn to the operating room where she intubated her and began CPR. Dawn was not transported to a hospital until 10:00 a.m., nearly an hour after staff first noted that she wasn't breathing. Dawn was pronounced dead at 4:30 pm.

An autopsy noted that she had suffered an amniotic fluid embolism. All of the defendants in the case filed by Dawn's survivors argued that an amniotic fluid embolism can not be prevented or treated and thus Dawn would have died no matter what they had done. The jury found that the clinic and nurse Wissbrun were 100% liable.

Eastern Women's Center also provided fatal abortion care to Dawn Ravenelle and Venus Ortiz.

New source: "$604,000-Jury Verdict Failure To Diagnose And Treat AmnioticFluid Embolism In Patient After An Abortion - Wrongful Death Of21 Year Old - Five Minutes Of Pain And Suffering"

Homicide in California, 2009

Dr. Andrew Rutland

On July 28, 2009, 30-year-old Ying Chen, who did not speak English, went to Andrew Rutland's abortion facility in San Gabriel, California, for a safe, legal abortion. Rutland's records for Ying were paltry and inadequate. He administered medications that he was not authorized to dispense. She began to have a clear adverse reaction to the drugs, and Rutland asked an accupuncturist who shared his office to call 911. According to the paramedics who responded, nobody at the facility was providing any care to Ying when they arrived, although she was in cardiorespiratory arrest. Though there was a crash cart in the clinic -- albeit one with expired medications -- and another in Rutland's car, nobody at the clinic used either one to treat the dying patient. Rutland had been in previous trouble with the medical board, and was in violation of many of their stipulations when he provided the lethal care to Ying. The medical examiner determined Ying's manner of death to be homicide, but to my knowledge no charges were ever pressed against Rutland.

For more background on Rutland's appalling treatment of Ying, read "Last year's abortion death declared homicide."