RealChoice: "Lime 5" Prompts Confusion -- and Correction

Friday, November 18, 2022

"Lime 5" Prompts Confusion -- and Correction

As I've made my way through Lime 5, I've become confused as to the death of Sharon Floyd.

Lime 5 indicates that "Sharon" (Mark Crutcher typically used the woman's real first name in quotes.) underwent an abortion by John Roe 224 on April 11, 1975 and became ill two days later. She was hospitalized two days later and diagnosed with acute septicemia with pelvic, subphrenic, and retroperitoneal abscesses. She died on April 29.

Lime 5 cites the Chicago Sun-Times "Abortion Profiteers" series, which mentions a woman identified as "Ms. Floyd" but no woman who died on April 29, 1975.

According to the Sun-Times, Ms. Floyd underwent an abortion at Associated Concern in Chicago on March 25, 1975 and died three days later of pelvic infection and blood poisoning.

Lime 5 also cites Illinois Death Certificate No. 911030. Chicago death records -- File No. 611030 -- indicate that 18-year-old Sharon Floyd died on that date in Chicago. This agrees with the Social Security records, who have a Black woman named Sharon Floyd, 18 years old, who died in April of 1975.

The Daily Calumet, September 23, 1976, says that a 19-year-old woman died following an incomplete abortion performed by Dr. Samuel Edwards at Associated Concern.

Sharon Floyd was 18 years 10 months 23 days when she died.

It's unlikely that two women, both with the surname Floyd, died after abortions at Associated Concern, or that two women, one age 18 and one age 19, died after abortions performed in 1957 at Associated Concern. The most likely scenario, then, is that the death certificate and other records have the correct date of death for Sharon Floyd, and that she is the Lime 5 Sharon. From now on, I'll use the April 29 date of death.April 29, 1975

On July 1, 1975, public health officials closed Associated Concern.

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