Friday, September 30, 2022

September 30, 1985: Another Black Woman on the Altar of Choice

Life Dynamics identified 21-year-old Gaylene Michelle Golden on their “Blackmun Wall” as the woman who died after an abortion by by Dr. Joe Bills Reynolds. 

Reynolds performed the abortion on Gaylene in his Oklahoma City office on September 30, 1985. 

Due to a cervical laceration, Gaylene developed an embolism — both air and amniotic fluid in her bloodstream. This embolism killed her, leaving Gaylene’s son motherless.

The man Gaylene had entrusted with her life was a jack of all trades, doing a variety of elective surgeries, including safe and legal abortions, in his filthy clinic. His primary focus, though, seemed to be liposuction. Perhaps abortion seemed to be an easy way to make money using the same suction machine.

Reynolds’ anesthetist, age 60, had originally been hired as a janitor, and an untrained orderly was acting as his nurse. The operating room was littered with dirty cups and papers.

The quality of care at Reynold's facility was appalling

Reynolds tried to collect $500,000 on his wife’s life insurance after she bled to death after he opened 25-inch incision, ostensibly for liposuction, on September 7, 1989. Reynolds was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter and fined $1. He voluntarily surrendered his Oklahoma license.

ADDENDUM: Reynolds’ daughter, Shelly Reynolds, was charged with performing at least seven abortion without a license at her father’s clinic after he was stripped of his own license. (“District Attorney Seeks Abortion Information, The Oklahoman, July 31, 1991)

Watch Wife-Killer's Forgotten Victim on YouTube.

Sources: 

  • "Doctor’s Trial Nears In Liposuction Death,” The Daily Oklahoman, Apr. 22, 1991
  • District Court of Oklahoma (OK) County, Case, CJ 87-2991
  • Fatal Pulmonary Embolism During Legal Induced Abortion in the United States from 1972-1985,” Lawson, Herschel W., MD, Atrash, Hani K., MD, MPH, Franks, Adele L., MD, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vol. 162, No. 4, April 1990, p. 986-990

Thursday, September 29, 2022

September 29, 1923: Revelations at a Baby Farm

On September 29, 1923, 44-year-old Annie Allison, a London native living in Brooklyn, died at the office of chiropractor Henry Lee Mottard at 114 West 71st Street in Manhattan. Mottard practiced under the name of Dr. Henry L. Green. Annie was a homemaker. Her husband, Herbert Allison, was a music professor. According to census records, she and Herbert had two children Bernhard and Elsie, who were young adults at the time of their mother's death.

Annie was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Brooklyn, on October 2. 

However, Annie's death certificate, signed by a Dr. Husson, attributed her death to chronic cardiac nephritis. 

Two years later, police were investigating 41-year-old Mottard for his suspected involvement in a kidnap/adoption scheme and the disappearance of an infant returned to him after a family backed out of an adoption. Somehow this investigation raised suspicions that Mottard was up to more than just kidnapping and selling infants. They had Annie exhumed. That's when things got really weird.

During the post-mortem examination, performed on April 17, 1925, doctors found that somebody had removed Annie's brain, heart, kidneys, and other organs. Mottard reportedly admitted that he had indeed performed an abortion but that Annie had actually died from falling down the shaft of a dumbwaiter on his premises while she was there recuperating. She had, he said, mistaken the dumbwaiter shaft for a bathroom. However, there were no broken bones or other injuries consistent with a fall. 

Mottard denied having been at his practice at the time that Annie died.

It was revealed that she had died from an abortion. Mottard was arrested on suspicion of homicide. His bond was set at $25,000. That's over $400,000 in 2022 dollars.

Police concluded that Mottard was running a very lucrative abortion business out of the Manhattan brownstone, bringing in as much as $100,000 a year. That's nearly $1.7 million in 2022 dollars. He admitted that he had performed many abortions and claimed no maternal fatalities. 

During the investigation, police searched Mottard's ten-acre farm outside the city for evidence of more bodies after allegations arose that Mottard had also performed an abortion there on a young woman the previous January. An operating room and a machine gun were found in the 14-room farmhouse. I haven't been able to find reports that they found the remains of any babies.

A second homicide case was filed against Mottard by officials of Suffolk County, where the farm was located. They had evidence that one of Mottard's rural abortion patients had suffered the same fate as Annie Allison. 

Mottard admitted to having performed three abortions in the farmhouse but recanted his admission that he had performed the fatal one on Annie. 

Mottard told officials that he had come to New York five years earlier from Wisconsin and had changed his name from Mottard to Green because he preferred the name. Records do show him practicing chiropractic in Milwaukee in the first quarter of the century.

Watch "She Fell Down the Elevator Shaft" on YouTube.

Sources:

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Are Abortions Used as Birth Control?

With just under one million abortions a year in the United States, many people wonder: Are women just using abortion as a method of birth control? 

There are different school of thought on this question. Some prolife hardliners hold that unless the pregnancy is the result of non-consensual sex, or some health problem in mother or fetus is discovered during pregnancy, it's "abortion for birth control." 

The Alan Guttmacher Institute published a study reviewing why women undergo abortions. Each woman could give multiple reasons, but let's look at the ones where the primary reason would be a "hard case." 4% of women said their primary reason for abortions was concerns for their own health. 3% said their primary reason was concern for the health of the fetus. Incest wasn't listed as a possible reason. Rape constituted less than 1/2 of 1%. This means that just over 7% of women gave health concerns for themselves or the fetus, or nonconsensual sex, as the primary reason for an abortion.

This would mean that just under 93% of abortions are done for birth control.

What about women who have repeat abortions? That would certainly seem like those women were using abortion as birth control. The most recent CDC numbers I could find indicate that in 2019, 58.2% of women were undergoing a first abortion, 23.8% had one prior abortion, 10.5% had two previous abortions, and 7.5% had three or more previous abortions. (Note: This is more than the total number of women citing rape, incest, or health as the primary reason for an abortion.) This would indicate that 41.8% of women are using abortions for birth control.

What about defining "abortion as birth control" as a woman who was not using birth control when she conceived, and she had no intention of becoming pregnant. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 49% of women undergoing abortions had not been using birth control the month that they became pregnant. Since some of these women might not have realized they had health problems, or might have discovered that the baby had a health problem, or might have been raped, I'll subtract 7.5% to account for those cases. That would put the leave 45.3% of women using abortion as birth control.

Thus, at the low end, looking at repeat abortions, it looks as if nearly 42% of women who undergo abortions are using it as birth control. A slightly higher proportion, just over 45%, weren't using birth control and sought abortions instead. And 93% are having abortions because, for whatever reason, they just don't want to have the baby.

To look at some of the dynamics involved, I highly recommend Taking Chances: Abortion and the Decision Not to Contracept, by Kristin Luker.

Here are some resources that provide further food for thought:

Watch the video on YouTube.

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

September 27, 1931: Newark's Tragic Bride

In early September of 1931, Jane Coult, the daughter of a Newark, New Jersey judge, secretly married John Merrill. The couple had a public wedding at the bride's home on September 22.

Five days later, Jane was dead.

She had been under the care of  Dr. Aloysius Mulholland, age 35, from September 24 through 26th before being admitted to Polyclinic Hospital in New York. Police said that Jane had paid Mulholland $500 of a $600 abortion fee. An autopsy confirmed that her death was due to a criminal abortion.

Both Mulholland and Jane's new husband were charged with murder. Each was released on $7,500 bond. Mulholland made no statement on the advice of his attorney. This turned out to be very good advice, because the case didn't end up going forward.

Mulholland was later charged with the abortion death of Katherine DiDonato and again remained free. He was finally imprisoned in 1943 after being charged with several abortions which were not fatal to the mothers.

Watch "The Tragic Five-Day Bride" on YouTube.

Sources:

September 27: Cervical Dilator Left in Woman's Uterus, Resulting in Death

I don't like to dehumanize women by just using initials, so the woman identified in medical board documents as "S.H." will be called "Shirelle."

Frank Rodriguez
On September 22, 2012, 31-year-old Shirelle went to Presidential Women's Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, for an abortion. There, Dr. Frank Rodriguez pushed a cervical dilator into Shirelle's uterus and left it there. Shirelle died five days later, on September 27.

It's interesting to note that the medical board doesn't mention Shirelle's death in the disciplinary documents. Operation Rescue discovered the death on a malpractice payout reporting form.

Evidently the insurance payout was done quietly, since I have not been able to find any newspaper coverage of Shirelle's death.

Monday, September 26, 2022

September 26, 1990: NAF Member Abu "The Butcher of Avenue A" Hayat

The National Abortion Federation promises the moon. Their providers are supposedly the safest in the land. In practice, they don't exactly live up to their sterling reputation. Case in point: Dr. Abu Hayat, "The Butcher of Avenue A."

NAF member Abu Hayat
Sophie McCoy, age 17, was raising a toddler son and trying to finish her studies at Clara Barton High School when she learned that she was pregnant.

On September 17, 1990, Sophie ("Patient C") went to the office of National Abortion Federation member Abu Hayat, accompanied by her mother, Carmen McCoy, and by the husband of the operator of a facility identified as "the Willoughby Avenue Clinic." Sophie had been referred to him, but medical board documents do not say by whom.

Sophie and Carmen returned to Hayat's office the next day and paid $300 for the safe, legal abortion. Sophie was given intravenous medications which put her to sleep. She was kept about four hours and discharged with another prescription for antibiotics.

That evening, Sophie was bleeding, had abdominal pain, and was having trouble breathing.

The next day, September 19, Sophie was struggling to breathe, so Carmen took her to Kings County Medical Center. Sophie was admitted reporting vaginal bleeding, chest pain, and shortness of breath. Dr. Harding, who treated her, discovered that Sophie had a perforated uterus and serious sepsis. An emergency hysterectomy was performed, but Sophie developed disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (a clotting disorder) and septic shock. 

Sophie died on September 26, leaving her one-year-old son motherless.

Blue and white logo with text: NAF and National Abortion Federation
After Sophie's death, Hayat originally denied having treated her at all. But Sophie's mother identified Hayat by name and from a photograph.

While continuing to deny having treated Sophie, Hayat told one of the physicians who had tried to save her life that she had expelled a fetus at home and come to him for treatment, whereupon he'd sent her to the hospital. But Margie, an employee of his, recognized Sophie from a photo and said that Hayat had indeed treated the girl on two occasions. 

Margie added that after the second visit, Sophie's mother had called, hysterical and crying. Margie further said that she had seen medical records for Sophie at the facility, and that Hayat had argued with the referring clinic about  payments for Sophie's treatment.

The case was reported to the district attorney and the New York Health Department. Hayat had been the target of state investigation since 1988, but the complaints against him weren't considered to be of a serious enough nature to warrant quick action. Further investigation after Sophie's death indicated that Hayat might have been using dirty instruments when he performed Sophie's abortion, leading to the fatal infection, but nobody took any action against him until he pulled the arm off an infant during an abortion attempt in 1991. 

The child, Ana Rosa Rodriguez, (pictured), was born at a nearby hospital. Her right arm was entirely absent from the shoulder. 

Hayat was arrested, charged with assault and illegal third-trimester abortion, and convicted.

Sources:




Sunday, September 25, 2022

September 25, 1986: The Good Kind of Fake Clinic

Twenty-two-year-old Liliana Cortez walked trustingly into a place called Her Medical Clinic on September 20, 1986. 

She had no way of knowing that it wasn't actually a licensed clinic but had lots its license due to habitual malpractice. Maria Soto and Michelle Thames had died after abortions at there before the state finally shut the place down. Leo F. Kenneally had solved his business problem by reopening the facility as his private medical practice without changing the name. He continued to perform abortions, including one that killed a young asthmatic woman named Donna Heim on August 12, 1986.

Other than having asthma, Liliana was in good health when she went for her abortion. 

During the procedure, she suffered a seizure. Rather than take action to address the emergency, Kenneally continued the abortion. There was a 40-minute delay until the paramedics arrived to transport Liliana to a hospital. She died five days later. 

You can learn more about Kenneally's checkered history by reading "Doctor Tied to 2 Deaths Loses License" from the Los Angeles Times.

Watch "The Good Kind of Fake Clinic" on YouTube.

Sources:

Thursday, September 08, 2022

September 8, 2009: Planned Parenthood Brings Death to Another Black Woman

 At last Planned Parenthood has decided that Margaret Sanger is too racist for their tastes. At least in public. Her name will be removed from their flagship New York abortion center.

The erstwhile Margaret Sanger Center is where the unfortunate Roselle Owens met her death. 

Roselle's Story


A smiling Black teenage girl with long, straightened hair, wearing a low-cut white sweather and holding up a bottle of sparking cider.
Roselle proudly celebrating non-alcoholic
just two months before her fatal abortion.
Roselle Owens was a vibrant 17-year-old high school student, thinking ahead to college, when she discovered that she was pregnant in 2009.

She made the mistake of entrusting herself to Planned Parenthood of New York City. She went to the Margaret Sanger Center for an abortion on the morning of April 11. Dr. Gerald Zupnick, who has a history of malpractice, performed the abortion under general anesthesia. The anesthesia was contracted out to employees of Somnia, also called Outpatient Anesthesia Services.


Zupnick noted in the operative report that the abortion was "uneventful," completing the procedure at 9:20 a.m. Shortly thereafter, staff found that Roselle's breathing was labored and her blood oxygen levels had fallen. A lawsuit filed by Roselle's half-brother on behalf of himself, Roselle's father, and her twin brother asserted that neither Somnia employees, Zupnick, or Planned Parenthood's other staff properly monitored Roselle. The ambulance was not summoned for her until 9:43 a.m., over 20 minutes after the abortion was completed. EMS services transported Roselle to St. Vincent's Medical Center at 10:05 a.m.


Staff at the hospital were able to stabilize Roselle, but the damage had already been done. Roselle remained on a ventilator at St. Vincent's until her death on September 8. She died when she should have been just getting settled into her new college life.


Both Zupnick and Planned Parenthood settled off-the-books, thus ending the paper trail.


Roselle Owens isn't the only woman to die from complications of a Planned Parenthood abortion. 


No Friend to Black Women


Taking Margaret Sanger's name off the clinic where Roselle suffered her fatal injuries does nothing to change a disturbing pattern at Planned Parenthood: It's been Black women dying from Planned Parenthood abortions.


Cree Erwin-Shephard, age 24, suffered internal injuries during an abortion at Planned Parenthood in Kalamazoo, Michigan on June 30, 2016. She sought aftercare from a hospital and decided to stay at her mother's house for a while until she felt better. Her mother found her cold and dead in a basement bedroom on July 4. 

Tonya Reaves, age 24, was rushed to Northwest Memorial Hospital in Chicago and pronounced dead at 11:20 p.m. on Friday, July 21, 2012. She was taken there from the Planned Parenthood facility at 18 S. Michigan Avenue, which advertises abortions up to 18 weeks. Tonya had undergone a D&E abortion and ended up bleeding to death from an undiagnosed uterine perforation.



Portrait of a smiling young Black woman with long, straightened hair coiffed casually
Edrica Goode went to a Planned Parenthood in Riverside, California, on January 31, 2007, for a safe, legal second-trimester abortion. A nurse there inserted laminaria to dilate Edrica's cervx, although Edrica had symptoms of a vaginal infection at the time. Edrica, who had not told her family about the abortion, did not return to the facility to have the laminaria removed and the abortion completed because her mental state had deteriorated overnight. She had became feverish, her mother said. She became mentally "confused and disoriented," not knowing what day it was. Edrica's family took her to Riverside County Regional Medical Center on February 4. After Edrica's boyfriend told her family about the visit to Planned Parenthood, staff at the hospital performed a pelvic examination and discovered the laminaria, along with some gauze. Edrica miscarried that day, and died on February 14 from toxic shock syndrome.

Wednesday, September 07, 2022

September 7, 1989: She Wasn't Even Pregnant

Synthia Yvette Dennard
Twenty-four-year-old Synthia Dennard, a married mother of two, went to Biogenetics in Chicago for an abortion and tubal ligation on September 7, 1989. The surgery was performed by Inno Obasi.

Snythia had been described in her high school yearbook as "A pretty young lady with enough smiles to light up the world."

Synthia began to hemorrhage during the surgery. A medical investigation later found that Obasi had "failed to summon help in a timely manner; refused to allow trained and skilled paramedics to attend to Synthia; refused to allow paramedics to transport Synthia to a hospital in a timely manner," and otherwise "allowed Synthia to bleed to death."

Synthia's survivors had to file a court order to keep the facility from destroying her records. An autopsy revealed that instead of removing a section of Synthia's fallopian tube, Obasi had removed a portion of an artery. The autopsy also revealed that Synthia, mother of two, had not been pregnant at the time of her abortion.

The state suspended Obasi's license for five years for cases of malpractice including Synthia's death along with perforating the uterus of Krystal S in 1989 and of Michelle P in 1990. Obasi poo-poohed the board's concerns, saying, "There is a little saying in obstetrics and gynecology that you are not yet a gynecologist until you've perforated a uterus."

Sources: Cook County Circuit Court Case No. 89L 13692; Illinois Department of Professional Regulation Case No. 80-2096; Cook County Autopsy Report Case No. 125 of September 1989; Obasi v. Department 639 N.E.2d 1318 (1994); Illinois Death Certificate No. 617111; "State acts against Loop doctor," Chicago Tribune, October 26, 1989; "Famous Quotes," Chicago Tribune, December 4, 1989; "Revoke doctor's license, board urges," Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1990; 6/13/90






Monday, September 05, 2022

September 5, 1992: The Uneventful Death of Deanna Bell

Date of service 9-5-92, Uneventful D&C, Thank you [for the referral]! -- Dr. Steve Lichtenberg

Former abortion facility on Elston Avenue
It was September 5, 1992. Eighteen members of Deanna Bell's family were gathered in a Chicago abortion clinic at 5086 N. Elston Avenue, wanting to know why the 13-year-old girl was lying dead in a back room.

Dr. Steve Lichtenberg, who had performed the fatal abortion, left his clinic manager to field questions from Deanna's distraught relatives. Lichtenberg himself had joined the clinic manager earlier in talking to Deanna's mother and sister. Deanna had, they told the family, most likely died from an amniotic fluid embolism -- a known, dangerous, and difficult to treat complication of later abortions.

It was just one of those flukey things that happens sometimes.

Somebody at the clinic -- Albany Medical Surgical Center -- notified the coroner about the death. Even though Deanna's death was attended by a physician, somebody thought to order an autopsy. Tests were performed that found no evidence of an amniotic fluid embolism.

So why was the child dead? She had been taken into the procedure room at about 7:40 that morning, a healthy girl. The abortion had taken 11 minutes. During the 11 minutes Lichtenberg had spent pulling her unborn baby out in pieces, something had gone wrong. She had been discharged to the recovery room at 7:51, rating only 9 favorable points out of 14 for color, respiration, and so on. Her pulse was alarmingly rapid -- between 130 and 135 beats per minute.

After only two minutes in the recovery room, at 7:53, Deanna was documented as lacking all vital signs -- pulse, respiration, blood pressure. But the first efforts to resuscitate her were not documented until 8:51. During that hour, Lichtenberg said, there were attempts at resuscitation, but nobody had documented them and nobody had called an ambulance so that properly-trained medics could resuscitate Deanna and bring her to a better-equipped facility.

Deanna "never regained productive cardiac activity or consciousness." She was pronounced dead at 8:52.

What had gone so terribly, terribly wrong?

The abortion hadn't gone well from the very start.

laminaria tents
It was a multi-stage 21-week abortion that had begun on September 3 with the insertion of laminaria -- sticks of seaweed that absorb moisture, expand, and dilate the cervix. According to Deanna's records, she was "uncooperative" during this process -- which, Deanna's family said, had been performed by a non-physician -- so when the time came to change the laminaria the next day, Lichtenberg did it under general anesthesia. CRNA Larry Hill administered 400 mg of Brevital-- a drug not approved for pediatric use at the time -- when a sufficient dose for an adult would be 70 mg. And during the procedure, Lichtenberg accidentally ruptured the amniotic sac.

The next day Deanna's mother brought her back to the clinic. During the actual abortion procedure on the 5th, Deanna CRNA Arthur Goode administered at least 250 mg. of Brevital-- at least 3.6 times the therapeutic dose. She was not intubated, as per Brevital protocols. Oxygen was administered by waving the oxygen mask near Deanna's face.

CRNA Goode and Elizabeth Sturm put Deanna on a gurney and took her to the recovery room. Strum was referred to as a medical assistant although she had no formal medical education. Strum put a pulse oximeter on Deanna's finger and a blood pressure cuff on her arm, then Goode went to anesthetize another patient for an abortion.

As the lawsuit states, "Before obtaining a reading from either of Bell's monitoring devices in the recovery room, Sturm began to write on Bell's medical chart the vital signs Sturm expected to find, rather than Bell's actual vital signs. This practice is called 'precharting.' While Sturm was precharting, the pulse oximeter beeped, indicating that it was not getting a reading. Sturm removed the device from Bell's finger and checked its operation by making sure the light inside the device was on. Sturm then placed the device on another of Bell's fingers, but still did not receive a reading. Sturm looked at Bell's appearance for evidence of a problem, but she noticed only that Bell was 'a black girl.' When Sturm was still unable to get a reading on on the pulse oximeter, she summoned the nurse, Dolly Barnett."

ambu-bag
Nurse Barnett assessed Deanna and determined that she was pulseless and not breathing. She sent Strum to fetch Goode while she initiated CPR. Goode joined her, using an ambu-bag and supplemental oxygen.

At around 8:00, Lichtenberg finished with the patient he was operating on and joined Goode and Barnett in the recovery room.  He took over chest compressions while Goode attached the EKG machine. About 15 minutes later Goode intubated Deanna. Lichtenberg administered epinephrine six times and shocked Deanna's heart four times. An expert for Deanna's family indicated that, like the dose of Brevital, the jolts of electricity were higher than indicated for a patient of Deanna's size.

Lichtenberg pronounced Deanna dead.

Was the massive dose of Brevital the reason Deanna's heart stopped? The coroner drew no conclusions, merely noting that Deanna had congested lungs, a uterus full of clotted blood, and a lot of Brevital in her system. There were no signs of an amniotic fluid embolism

Deanna's family wanted answers. They sued. And in their investigation they found evidence that Lichtenberg's staff failed to monitor Deanna. The facility had no protocols for dealing with cardio-respiratory arrest. Nobody on the clinic staff who attended to Deanna was current in their advanced cardiac life support protocols. 

They also found that Deanna wasn't the first patient to die after an abortion at a Family Planning Associates Medical Group facility. Denise HolmesMary PenaPatricia ChaconJosefina GarciaLaniece DorseyTami SuematsuJoyce Ortenzio, and Susan Levy had already died under the ministrations of Allred and his team of abortionists. And Allred admitted in a deposition that he had never done any sort of preventability study after any of these deaths. He said that he could find no fault with his staff in their handling of Deanna.

Deanna's family lost their lawsuit in 1999 but won a new trial on the grounds that the judge had excluded vital evidence showing malpractice. In 2004, however, a judge ruled that the case would not go back to trial because of the amount of time that had elapsed since Deanna's death. As of 2005, there has been no update on the case.

After Deanna's death, Christine Mora, TaTanisha Wesson, Maria Leho, Kimberly Neil, Nakia Jorden, Maria Rodriguez, Chanelle Bryant, and "Kyla Ellis" also perished under FPA's dubious care. That makes a total of 17 deaths I'm personally aware of.

At a National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar (Lichtenberg is always in attendance, and frequently a presenter), Planned Parenthood Medical Director Michael Burnhill scolded Lichtenberg when he boated of his exploits in performing risky abortions in an outpatient facility and treating life-threatening complications on-site instead of transporting patients to fully-equipped facilities. Burnhill called this "playing Russian roulette with patients' lives.

It appears that in Lichtenberg's little game, Deanna Bell was the loser.

Deanna has been dead twenty years now, seven more years than she'd spent walking this earth. Allred, Lichtenberg, and the FPA attorneys stalled the family's lawsuit, and eventually succeeded in thwarting their efforts to get justice for a young girl who died at the hands of a risk-taker.

Watch "Deanna Bell's Uneventful Death" on YouTube.

Sources: Cook County Circuit Court Case No. 94L05372; "Girl dies in abortion clinic after surgery," Chicago Tribune September 6, 1992; "Mom sues area abortion clinic after her 13-year-old girl dies," Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1994; "Mother Can Sue Abortion Business Over Daughter's Abortion Death," LifeNews.com, June 10, 2005