Wednesday, April 13, 2022

April 13: Safe and Legal in California, 1968

Stella Saenz, age 42, had arranged for a legal abortion in the spring of 1968. At that time, California allowed legal abortions, but only in hospitals. On April 11, she was admitted to Los Angeles County General Hospital with sepsis. Doctors administered penicillin. Stella went into anaphylactic shock; neither she nor the doctors had realized that Stella was allergic to penicillin. Doctors tried to treat both the infection and Stella's reaction to the penicillin, to no avail. She died on April 13. The California Department of Public Health classified Stella's death as both a drug reaction death and a legal abortion death.

Unfortunately, when the Cemetery of Choice Wiki was closed down, I lost access to my original source documents.

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