September 16, 1988: Shameful Exploitation of a Bereaved Family

To this day, abortion advocates and other left-leaning sources claim that Rebecca Suzanne "Becky" Bell died from an illegal abortion on September 16, 1988. Abortion advocates schlepped her distraught parents all over the country, using their family tragedy to fight against parental involvement laws and thus to endanger other teens, purportedly in the name of protecting them.

Becky was a pretty girl -- blonde hair, blue eyes, looking every inch a cheerleader. After a pregnancy scare, her parents told her that if she ever did that to them again, they'd throw her out of the house. So when 17-year-old Becky learned that she really was pregnant in 1988, she told the baby's father and he abandoned her, breaking off all contact in mid-July.

No doubt feeling utterly lost and alone, Becky turned to her best friend Heather Clark for help. Together they explored her options. If Becky were to get an abortion in Indiana, she would have to tell her parents. After being threatened with being thrown out of the family home, Becky rejected that option. Perhaps Becky could drive to Kentucky for an abortion. Perhaps she could go to a home for unwed mothers in California. Becky seemed undecided.

Perhaps it was the stress of the pregnancy that knocked Becky off the wagon. She had been through hospitalization from mid-February through April of 1988 for substance abuse struggles. The treatment was clearly unsuccessful. Becky went to a party the weekend of September 10 and 11, to forget her troubles, and to be with the people she thought were her friends. Becky couldn't even remember what drugs she did at the party. She passed out in her own vomit. 

That can't have done her immune system any favors -- an immune system that could well have been damaged by the previous substance abuse. 

On September 13 she was feverish and ill and stayed home from school. She seemed to improve, but when her father came home at around noon on September 16 he found her gravely ill. Her parents rushed her to St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis. After the doctor had been working on Becky for a while, he told her mother he wasn't sure if he could save the baby. Karen, Becky's mother, recalled that she told the doctor, "Never mind that baby! Save my baby!"

Becky was pronounced dead at 11:29 pm. Her body was sent for an autopsy, performed by Jesse C. Giles with the Forensic Division of the Indiana University School of Medicine.

I have abstracted thousands of abortion malpractice cases and over a hundred autopsy reports on women and girls who have died from abortion complications. Becky's autopsy report, which I have also read, clearly shows no signs whatsoever of post-abortion infection. There was no evidence of inflammation or infection in any of her reproductive organs. There were no signs of instrumentation of her uterus or cervix. There was on evidence of infected or septic pregnancy tissue.

So what does Becky's autopsy show? What it shows is  pneumonia, the same strain that killed Muppets creator Jim Henson. 

For some obscure reason, someone in the coroner's office put "septic abortion" on the cover sheet of Becky's autopsy report instead of the pneumonia that actually killed her.

Bill and Karen Bell unwittingly endangering other teens

Desperate to find some meaning in their daughter's death, the parents latched onto the term, "septic abortion." Perhaps, like most laymen, they didn't realize that a miscarriage is a form of abortion -- what's called a "spontaneous abortion." That still leaves the mystery of where the word "septic" came from, since Becky's reproductive tract was healthy and free of injury or infection. But however the idea arose, Becky's family decided that Becky must have sought an illegal abortion. Abortion advocates caught wind of the story and recruited the parents as spokesmen against parental involvement laws.

Over the years, the story has become more and more sanitized. Becky's drug use, her previous pregnancy scare, the fact that her parents had threatened her, fell aside. In the pro-choice version, Becky was the carefree, happy child who never gave her parents any worries. Becky sought an abortion to avoid disappointing her parents, but was stymied by parental involvement laws. Becky procured any one of a variety of amateur abortions. (Here the story gets fuzzy, and different organizations tell different tales -- attempts to cause a miscarriage with drugs, a criminal abortionist, Becky's own hand wielding a coat hanger -- none of which had any evidence to support them.) The abortion, they claim, started an infection in her uterus. The infection traveled to Becky's lungs and killed her -- while mysteriously vacating her uterus entirely and leaving it healthy and infection-free. 

"She died because of a law," pro-choicers chant. But Becky's death wasn't an abortion death.  Her death was an exploited for an utterly unrelated cause, simply because of two words on the cover of a coroner report, and the desperation of an abortion industry that was losing the lucrative teen market.

Meanwhile the cheerleaders for abortion continue to ignore teens who died of secret abortions. Dawn Ravenelle was 13 years old when her mother got a call to come to St. Luke's hospital, where Dawn was "fighting for her life". Erica Richardson's aunt arranged a secret abortion that left the girl dead from an embolism. Jammie Garcia probably would have survived the complications of her abortion had she not kept it a secret, thus delaying medical care until it was too late. Sandra Kaiser went into a terrible depression after her clandestine abortion and ended up committing suicide by throwing herself off an overpass into traffic. Tamiia Russell was brought for a secret abortion by the sister of the 24-year-old man who had been sexually abusing her. Why are these girls' deaths not newsworthy? Because they do not further the narrative that legal abortion is inherently safe and that anything that delays an abortion by even a day is inherently dangerous.

It's very difficult to find accurate information about Becky Bell from mainstream sources because the accurate information doesn't fit the narrative. But that doesn't mean that there is no information:

• Pro-Choice “Facts”: The Story of Becky Bell
• The Truth About Becky Bell
• "Abortion Debate Shifting," Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 9, 1990

September 15 of 1925 and 1926: Fatal Chicago Abortions

An Unknown Chicago Abortionist, 1925

On September 15, 1925, Mary Williams, a 25-year-old Black woman born in Mississippi, died at Chicago's County Hospital from an abortion performed on her that day at an undisclosed location. The person responsible for Mary's death was never identified, so it's impossible to know if she availed herself of one of the plethora of doctors and midwives practicing abortion in Chicago.

A Chicago Midwife, 1926

On September 15, 1926, 23-year-old Mary Bailek, a native of Poland, died at Chicago's Lutheran Deaconnes Hospital from complications of a criminal abortion performed at her home that day. Rozalia Ossowska, alias Olszewski, was arrested for the death on October 7. Her profession is not given but according to the 1930 Census she was a midwife. She was born around 1888 in Germany and immigrated to the US in 1906. On March 15, 1927, she was indicted for felony murder by a grand jury.

September 15, 1971: Teen Sent Home With Mangled Fetus in Womb

Eighteen-year-old Janice Marilyn Foster (previously identified as Janet Foster) underwent an abortion at the hands of 37-year-old Dr. Richard Neal at Valley Doctors; Hospital in North Hollywood, California on September 11, 1971. Janet's abortion had been a "therapeutic" abortion approved by the hospital committee, as was required at the time. Neal reported that he'd estimated the pregnancy at 12 weeks and performed what he thought was an uneventful suction abortion. 

Janet's brother-in-law reported that she was very weak and sleepy when he picked her up at the hospital. After returning home, Janet suffered abdominal pain, and called Neal on September 14. He told her he'd see her the next day. Janet felt ill, so she went to bed early. 

At around 2 a.m., Janet experienced hot and cold flashes for about twenty minutes, then went into convulsions. Her brother-in-law called for emergency services. Police and paramedics found Janet lying in bed with what appeared to be pus in her vaginal area. On the way to the hospital medics attempted attempted to revive her, to no avail; Janet was pronounced dead on arrival at 3:55 am. 

The autopsy found that Janet's heart and lung sacs contained serous fluid, and there was frothy tan fluid in her respiratory track. Her uterus was boggy and the placenta was still attached. Janet's uterus also contained "approximately 20 cc. of red-brown purulent and foul-smelling liquid with similar odor and color to an exudate on the endometrial surface."

Also in Janet's uterus was a "macerated, lacerated and purulent male fetus of about 19 weeks gestation. This fetus measures 14.5 cm. in crown-rump length, shows lacerations in the shoulder area, evisceration of the bowel through an abdominal laceration, and destruction of the skull and facial structures."  

Janet's death attributed to septicemia due to "incomplete abortion, therapeutic, septic." 

An LA County grand jury indicted Neal on a felony manslaughter charge in Janet's death. His first trial ended in a hung jury on March 24, 1976 after the four days of deliberation. The second trial ended in a hung jury on November 1, 1976 on the fifth day of deliberations.

Watch Teen Sent Home to Die on YouTube.

Sources: 

• LA County Coroner Case No. 71-9846
• LA County Superior Court Case No A310874 and Case No C34424
• "Mistrial declared in malpractice case," (Van Nuys, CA) Valley News, November 2, 1976
• "Southland," Los Angeles Times, December 2, 1976

September 15, 1902: New York Midwife is a Repeat Offender

Lena Schott

On September 15, 1902, Mrs. Henrietta Appel, age 31, died in New York from an abortion perpetrated by midwife Lena Schott (pictured). The police had been notified about the abortion by Henrietta's husband, Samuel, while she was on her deathbed. Henrietta admitted the abortion to the authorities and indicated that her husband had not known about it in advance.

When police went to arrest Schott, they had to break into the home, and found Schott in the basement. She attacked the arresting officer, Captain Elbert O. Smith, nearly tearing off his uniform and pinning him on the floor until other officers could restrain her. After her arrest, Schott admitted that she had treated Henrietta.

Schott had previously been implicated in the abortion deaths of Mary Gibson, Mary Ryan, Nellie Monohan, and Emily Binney.

Source: "Woman Fights Police Captain," The (New York) World, September 16, 1902

September 14, 1928: A "Massaguer" Implicated in Abortion Death

On September 14, 1928, 20-year-old Stella Wallenberg, a bindery worker, died from a criminal abortion performed in Chicago. Loretta Rybicki, identified as a "massaguer", was held by the coroner for murder by abortion. Dr. Nicholas Kalinowski was held as an accessory. Rybicki was indicted for felony murder on November 15.

It was not unusual for a lay abortionist to have a physician as an accomplice. Such physicians would do things such as train the lay abortionist, supply instruments and drugs, and provide aftercare if a woman suffered complications.

Source: Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database

September 14, 1992: A Lingering Death in Philadelphia

Rhonda Rollinson underwent a safe, legal abortion by Dr. Jay I. Levin at Malcom Polis's Philadelphia Women's Center September 3, 1992. The abortion attempt was unsuccessful. Rhonda was then sent home, with instructions to return on September 12 to try again.

Rhonda experienced such severe pain, dizziness, fever, and discharge that on September 10 she sought emergency care at a hospital. She was suffering "severe non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema consistent with adult respiratory distress syndrome."

Doctors did a laparoscopy, dilation and evacuation, abdominal hysterectomy, and splenectomy, to no avail. Rhonda died on September 14. The autopsy revealed a perforation from her vagina into the uterine cavity, sepsis, disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (a severe and often fatal clotting disorder), non-bacterial thrombotic endocarditis, pulmonary infarctions, and dysplastic kidney.

The suit filed by Rhonda's survivors also charged the facility and Polis with hiring Levin despite his lack of competence, failure to properly supervise his work, violation of applicable laws and regulations, lack of informed consent, failure to give proper post-operative instructions, and failure "to respond to the requests of [Rhonda] and her family for post-operative medical advice."

Source: Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Case No. 291, 1994

September 14, 1742 and 1925

1925: More of Lucy Hagenow's handiwork

Elizabeth Welter moved from Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin to Chicago in the fall of 1924. On September 14, 1925, the 19-year-old clerk died at John B. Murphy Hospital from complications of an abortion perpetrated about a week earlier. 

Mrs. Alta Vail told the deputy coroner, "Elizabeth roomed at 658 Roscoe street. A week ago she came to me and said she was very sick. I told her to stay at my home until she was better. Little by little she told me her story. She had obtained a position as a clerk in a store. Some months ago she began going out with a man. This man, she said, was responsible for her condition. She did not even know his name, she told me."

Lawrence Vail -- who according to 1930 census records was Alta's husband --  was identified by the coroner as responsible for the pregnancy, and the coroner recommended his arrest, along with the arrest of known abortionist Dr. Lucy Hagenow.

Hagenow was held to the grand jury on $20,000 bond (nearly $150,000 in 2020 dollars). However, because Vail refused to give a statement, police were unable to gather enough evidence to prosecute. Elizabeth was the 17th of 18 abortion deaths that have been connected to Hagenow. (See newly-added sources below.)

A tragic case from Colonial America

The oldest case I have in the Cemetery of Choice is the 1742 death of 19-year-old Sarah Grosvenor. Her story is recounted extensively in public records, but begins, predictably, with a lover who didn't love her enough to marry her once she was pregnant with his child. Sarah's family rallied around her, trying to save both her life and her reputation, but by the time they realized that she was pregnant and in the middle of an herbal abortion, the die was cast. Though Dr. John Hallowell shut himself in the room with Sarah on several occasions to provide some sort of care, Sarah breathed her last on September 14.

Her death-dealing abortionist had always been a marginal practitioner who lived a lot of his life on the wrong side of the law. Her faithless lover had been a high-standing member of the community. Sarah was buried, and life in the little town went on.

Suddenly, about a year after Sarah's death, warrants were issued for the arrests of the culpable parties and a hearing was held, determining that Hallowell was guilty of murder, and that Sarah's lover, Amasa Sessions, was an accessory. This was a preliminary finding, and called for prosecution. At first the case -- against Hallowell, at least -- was pushed vigorously. Hallowell was found guilty and sentenced to be shamed, whipped, and imprisoned. He escaped before this sentence could be carried out, and vanished from public view. Nobody went to any trouble to find him.

As for Amassa Sessions, he regained his fine standing in the community, married, and fathered a house full of children before dying at a ripe old age. Reading the laudatory inscription on his headstone, one can almost hear the weeping of the mourners, the family and distinguished persons of the town, as they lay Amasa Sessions, pillar of the community, to rest. Less than 25 feet away lay Sarah Grosvenor, nearly 50 years dead -- evidently forgotten.

Watch A Colonial Era Death and Another Victim of Lucy Hagenow on YouTube.

NEWLY ADDED SOURCES

Elizabeth Welter:

• "Girl's Brief Fling With City Night Life," Mattoon (IL) Journal Gazette, September 14, 1925
• "Woman Surgeon Sought Following Girl's Death," Chicago Tribune, September 15, 1925
• "Lucy Hagenow, Midwife, Held in Death of Girl," Chicago Tribune, September 16, 1925

September 13, 2007: Out of the blue - Laura Hope Smith

 

• 
  It was 7pm, we had just finished dinner and settled down to watch the evening news. My husband's cell phone rang with Laura's name on the ID. We always loved hearing from her. Laura was so full of life, your spirits were lifted just by talking to her. Except this time it wasn't her voice. There was guttural screaming and sobbing on the other end by a voice I did not immediately recognize. I heard the words "Laura", "Hospital" and the worst one, "Not Breathing," and then "abortion". My brain tilted, my heart sank, and life as I knew it ceased. It was Laura's friend Karen on the phone. She told me what happened, that Laura was having an abortion and something went terribly wrong. Karen was at the ER and the Doctor needed to talk to me. What Karen didn't know was that Laura had arrived at the ER already deceased. The EMT's found her this way at the abortion mill. The hospital was looking for next of kin to give the news to first, and Karen wasn't kin. "Laura's gone" the doctor told me. I wanted to hear "50-50 chance"...I would even accept "90-10 chance." But the word "chance" was not in the doctor's statement. All hope was gone, along with my daughter.

That call came on September 13, 2007 to Eileen and Tom Smith. Laura had died on a Hyannis, Massachusetts abortion table. 

The bewildered couple hadn't even known that their daughter was pregnant. 

Karen and Laura had arrived at Women Health Center in the morning for preparatory steps to abort Laura's 13-week baby. The two young women were to return in the afternoon for the actual procedure. Laura wasn't supposed to drive, so Karen drove and the two ran errands. Because Laura wasn't supposed to eat, Karen fasted with her friend.

They returned to the facility at about 4 in the afternoon and waited. Laura was called in at about 5, back to where Dr. Rapin Osathanondh and his instruments waited for her. Karen stepped out briefly, expecting her friend to be out of surgery in about fifteen minutes. But Laura didn't emerge from the bowels of the clinic. A worried Karen grew increasingly distressed.

"And then all of a sudden [an assistant] comes out and says she's not breathing. And I was like, what do you mean she's not breathing," Karen told the Cape Cod Times.

Fire department rescuers were dispatched to the clinic at 5:49 p.m., and found an unresponsive patient. They initiated CPR and took her to the hospital. Karen followed, but was not permitted to see her friend. She asked about Laura's condition. "It doesn't look good," she was told. Because next of kin hadn't been notified yet, the doctor couldn't tell Karen the truth: Laura was already dead on arrival. It was 6:22 p.m.

• I met with the doctor who aborted my grandchild, and who saw my daughter take her last breath. He would only meet me in a public place, without my husband. We talked for an hour and a half. Based on that meeting I believe I know what happened to Laura. He denies doing anything that caused her death. When we were done talking about Laura, I prayed, and asked God if there was anything He would have me say to the doctor. This is what I said next.... "The blood of my daughter is on your hands; the blood of my grandchild is on your hands; the blood of every life you have ever taken is on your hands," and I went on from there. He was silent with his head hung low. When I was ready to leave, I asked him if he would think about my daughter, and consider not doing any more abortions”he said he would think about it. When I left there I was praying, and said to God, "Can You stop this man from doing abortions? Is this what You have in mind, that he might even stop doing them?" I was thinking too small. I thought if one girl changed her mind [about having an abortion], I could find some comfort. I then realized that the Lord had much bigger plans. I have never experienced in my life, such tragedy, nor such grace.

OR also reports that Eileen Smith said she was "appalled and sickened" by her daughter's death, but can not give more details due to a pending lawsuit against the abortionist. What has come out afterward is just what prolifers have come to expect from abortionists: an untrained "hand holder" was assisting with general anesthesia, nobody in the clinic knew CPR, and there was no emergency resuscitation equipment. Osathanondh had been playing Russian roulette with his patients' lives. Laura paid for his callous carelessness with her life.

"My daughter was 22, healthy, and alive when she walked into that clinic," OR quotes Eileen Smith. "She didn't even have a cold. There is no reason for her to be dead."

OR says, "Laura was born into abject poverty in Hondurus on May 25, 1985, and was abandoned at an orphanage. An American couple that adopted Laura abused her terribly and gave her up. Laura was then adopted by Tom and Eileen Smith, a Christian family that lovingly raised Laura in the Cape Cod community of Sandwich." She graduated from Upper Cape Tech in 2004, trained as a cosmetologist, but she left that field to work in retail management.

It's particularly sad to me that Laura resorted to abortion despite being a Christian active in her local church. Her mother also reported that Laura was strongly opposed to abortion. Which goes to show that anybody can panic, and our churches need to be teaching young women how to get past the panic that too often leads to the abortion table. Laura's mother has now devoted her life to that mission.

OR reports that over 600 people attended Laura's funeral, and at least one young woman decided to reject abortion after learning of Laura's needless death. National Catholic Register reports that the young woman was being pressured by her parents to abort, and was about to capitulate when she learned of Laura's fate.

• I know that God is going to bring good out of my daughter's death. What a horrible thing; for my daughter to be associated with abortion. But, if God's going to use it for good and for His glory, then so be it. We're going very public with a very shameful, private thing because I believe God wants to use it to save lives. I believe the truth will come out, and the light of God will shine on this. Laura's death has had tremendous impact around the country, and even into Canada, without the local news mentioning it. It just came out in the secular media this week, 5 weeks after Laura's death. I now believe it is my calling to keep telling Laura's story to the Church, and the world. I naively believed that abortion was not a choice for a Christian girl. A Pastor had even apologized to me and the Lord, for not speaking about this from his pulpit. We both had false assumptions. This is a problem in the Church, and one that needs to be spoken about from the pulpits. We have to take the "A" word out of the closet, put it out in the open, and discuss it. And maybe, possibly, hopefully, we'll even become active against it. Please keep our family in your prayers, and please tell someone Laura's story.

Watch Pro-Life Woman's Abortion Death on YouTube.

Sources:

• "Doctor indicted in Cape abortion death," Cape Cod Times, July 16, 2008
• "Doctor gets 6 months in abortion patient death," NBC News, September 14, 2010
• "Ten Years Later, the Abortion Death of Laura Hope Smith Still Hurts," Operation Rescue, September 14, 2017
• "Mother speaks for life after daughter’s death during abortion," Baptist Press, February 26, 2008
• Blog: The Laura Hope Smith Story

California Post-Birth Abortions

The "moderators" in the Trump/Harris debate claimed that it's not legal in California to kill abortion survivors. The text of the law begs to differ:

"Assembly Bill No. 2223 CHAPTER 629 SEC. 7. (a) Notwithstanding any other law, a person shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability or penalty, or otherwise deprived of their rights under this article, based on their actions or omissions with respect to their pregnancy or actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcome, including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death due to causes that occurred in utero."

This makes it legal to do anything you want to a baby that survives an abortion attempt. So as long as you START the abortion before the baby comes out, you're allowed to finish it afterwards.

September 11, 1962: The Death of a Socialite

Barbara Covington

Gynecologist Mandel M. Friedman, age 53, was out on bail for the January 21, 1961 abortion death of Vivian Greczka aka Vivian Grant when he was charged with homicide in the September 11, 1962 death of Barbara Clarke Covington.

Barbara, age 35, was a Florida socialite and Chi Omega Sorority sister. 

A 31-year-old Madison Avenue advertising executive, Franklin Charles Beck, was offered immunity. He gave a 10-page statement in which he admitted to securing the $1,000 abortion fee (over $8,500 in 2020 dollars) and driving Barbara to Friedman's office at 3:00 pm. on September 10 for a consultation. They returned the next day for the abortion. He told police, "I loved her. I wanted to marry her. I did not want her to go through with this thing." He waited for about an hour while Friedman operated, only to have the doctor come out and announce, "She's gone."

Beck said that he told Friedman that he was going to call the police, but Friedman said, "Don't. You'll get us both in trouble. You'll ruin us. Think it over." He told Beck to say that Barbara had gone into convulsions and died of a heart attack.  

Friedman contacted Abbey Funeral Home to arrange for the removal of Barbara's body. The undertaker requested the necessary permission from the Board of Health and was told to contact the medical examiner's office. The medical examiner reported the case to authorities, who immediately recognized Friedman's name due to Vivian Grant's death. Their suspicions aroused, they had Barbara's body taken to the morgue at Queens General Hospital for autopsy. She had suffocated when her larynx had swollen shut during anesthesia. Her brother, State Senator D. D. Covington Jr., claimed her body and took it home to Dade City, Florida, for burial.

Friedman was questioned by authorities and released on $10,000 bail shortly after midnight, pending completion of the autopsy. He was scheduled to surrender to the Queens District Attorney's Office. Instead he fled, leading to a 13-state manhunt that ended quickly. Friedman surrendered, accompanied by his attorney and refusing to give any statement other than his name, age, address, and occupation. His original bail bondsman dropped him as a client, leaving Friedman behind bars.

After legal wrangling, Friedman entered a plea bargain, getting a manslaughter charge dropped and being sentenced to only two to four years at Sing-Sing on abortion charges.

As an aside, Friedman had two charges on his record for indecent exposure in 1939 and 1940.

Sources: 

• "13-State Alarm Is Out For MD in Abort Death," New York Daily News, September 13, 1962
• "Frazzled Doc Surrenders In Divorcee Abort Death," New York Daily News, September 14, 1962
• "Term in Abortions," Kansas City Times, December 12, 1963

September 11, 1976: Death Uncovered by Journalists

 Diane Smith, age 23, was one of the women mentioned in the Chicago Sun-Times expose, "The Abortion Profiteers." 

According to the report and her death certificate, Diane was admitted to Englewood Hospital in Chicago due to hemorrhaging. She told staff that she'd had a legal abortion in a Chicago-area clinic. 

Diane was treated for a perforated uterus and sepsis, to no avail. She died on September 11, 1976.

Watch Investigation Uncovers Abortion Death on YouTube.

September 11, 1970: Choosing The Riskier Alternative

William Day, a 21-year-old microbiology student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, was given a five-year suspended sentence at Walpole State Prison after pleading guilty to charges relating to the death of his girlfriend, 21-year-old community college student Nancy Kierzek. 

Day, who intended to become a doctor, had studied the information he could find about abortion methods, then perpetrated the abortion in his apartment using a catheter on September 10, 1970. 

Nancy bled heavily so Day rushed her in his car to Holyoke Hospital. The young woman was unconscious on arrival. Hospital staff notified the police, who arrested Day at around 7:30 that evening at the hospital. 

Nancy, who had been about four months into her pregnancy, died of blood poisoning just after midnight on September 11, 1970, a few hours after her admission. 

Abortion-rights advocates such as D. P. Kline made the claim that "pregnant women in Western Massachusetts faced two choices: to continue the pregnancy to term (and either keep the child or put it up for adoption) or to seek an illegal abortion. However, abortion had been legalized in New York, and hospitals in Boston were loosening their guidelines for "therapeutic" abortions. Why Nancy would submit to an illegal abortion when she was within less than 2 hours driving distance of a legal abortion remains a mystery.

Sources: 

• "UMass Student Charged With Abortion," (Pittsfield MA) Berkshire Eagle, September 11, 1970
• "UM Student's Abortion Case Delayed," Greenfield (MA) Recorder, October 27, 1970
• "Bound Over In Abortion Death Case," Holyoke (MA) Daily Transcript, November 19, 1970
• "Do-It-Yourself Abortionist Sentenced," (Pittsfield MA) Berkshire Eagle, February 2, 1971
• D. P. Kline, Creating Choice, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2006

September 11, 1918: Obstetrician Arrested After Chicago Death

On the evening of September 11, 1918, 35-year-old homemaker Gertrude Mathieson Harrington died in Chicago's Wesley Hospital. She had been admitted by Dr. John J. Gill, who noted evidence of an abortion when treating her. 

Dr. Helen Dugdale, an obstetrician, was arrested. She went on trial in June of 1920 but I haven't been able to determine if this was for Gertrude's death or for the death of another woman.  Dugdale had been implicated the previous year in the abortion death of Marie Benzing.

Sources:

• "Suspect Illegal Operation Caused Death of Woman," Chicago Tribune, September 12, 1918
• "Sixteen More Face Trial as Slayers Today," Chicago Tribune, June 1, 1920

September 10, 1915: Fatal Abortion on Non-Pregnant Teen

Emma Alby, age 15, was an immigrant from Hungary who lived in Chicago with her mother, who was also named Emma, and her father, Frank.

According to Mrs. Alby, Emma "complained of nervousness on July 7," 1915. Her parents suspected that "the child had been misbehaving" and took her to see Dr. Charles R. W. Windmueller on Belmont Avenue. 

Windmueller told Mr. and Mrs. Alby that Emma was pregnant over Emma's protests that she was "innocent." He recommended an abortion. In When Abortion Was a Crime, Leslie Reagan cites documentation of the inquest into Emma's death and says that Emma's father expressed reservations after having read many accounts in newspapers of midwives perpetrating abortions that proved fatal to the patients. Windmueller reported assured Mr. Alby, "Don't you be afraid. It is no danger at all."

The parents' fears were assuaged, and Windmueller attempted an abortion. According to Reagan's book, Windmueller perforated Emma's uterus and pulled out some of her intestines -- an injury that continues to end women's lives in safe and legal abortions. 

Emma's family evidently sought care from a different doctor, because Emma was admitted to Norwegian Lutheran Deaconess Hospital the following day by Dr. J. V. Fowler rather than by Windmueller. 

Emma died on September 10. An autopsy found that Emma had been telling the truth: She had not been pregnant.

According to census records, Windmueller was about 35 years old, a naturalized citizen from Germany. According to Regan, he was also a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago and a member of the American Medical Association.

Windmueller was indicted for felony murder in Emma's death. However, I can find no evidence that the case was actually prosecuted, and the fact that he was still living and practicing in Chicago at the time of the 1920 census would indicate that he suffered no long-term repercussions from Emma's death. Reagan merely notes that the response to the botched abortion failed to include a public crusade against physician-abortionists on a par with the contemporary crusade against midwife-abortionists.

Watch She Wasn't Pregnant After All on YouTube.

Sources:

• "Investigate Girl's Death," Chicago Sunday Tribune, September 12, 1915
• "Coroner's Jury Holds Doctor in Girl's Death," Chicago Daily Tribune, October 14, 1915
• Cook County Death Index
• Census records
• Reagan, Leslie J. When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c1997 1997
• Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database

September 10, 1975: LA Hospital Abortion Proves Deadly

Pacoima Lutheran Hospital

Thirty-one-year-old immigrant Mitsue Mohar went to Pacoima Lutheran Hospital in Los Angeles County for a safe and legal abortion on August 5, 1975. Dr. Baca performed the D&C abortion under general anesthesia. After the abortion, Mitsue went into convulsions. She remained 16 days at Pacoima Lutheran without regaining consciousness.

On August 21, she was transferred to LA County/USC Medical Center, where she died on September 10 without ever regaining consciousness. The autopsy found that she had suffered hypoxic encephalopathy due to cardiac arrest during the abortion, and had developed pneumonia which eventually killed her.

Watch Fatal Abortion at California Hospital on YouTube.

Source: LA County Coroner Report 75-10935

September 9, 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:

• "M'Kenzie Search Leads to Arrest in B'klyn Death," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 9, 1925
• "Baby Butcher Held in $25,000," NY Daily News, April 14, 1925
• "Fake 'Dr. Green' Arraigned Today," NY Daily News, April 16, 1925
• "Quack's Knife Killed Woman," NY Daily News, April 17, 1925
• "More Light on Baby Farms," Sunday News, April 19, 1925
• "Babies' Butcher Indicted," NY Daily News, April 25, 1925

September 9, 1921: The Mystery Abortion That Ruined an Innocent Man

In 1921, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (pictured, left) was one of the highest paid men in Hollywood. But on September 5 of that year, Arbuckle's life took a horrible turn nobody could have predicted. An aspiring actress, 25-year-old Virginia Rappe (pronounced ra-pay), took ill under strange circumstances at a weekend party Arbuckle was holding at a San Francisco hotel. Four days later, she was dead.

Arbuckle stood trial three times for Virginia's death. Two of the trials ended with hung juries. The third brought an unprecedented apology from the jury:

"Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel that a great injustice has been done him ... there was not the slightest proof adduced to connect him in any way with the commission of a crime. He was manly throughout the case and told a straightforward story which we all believe. We wish him success and hope that the American people will take the judgement of fourteen men and women that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame."

Arbuckle had done nothing to harm the girl. He was accused of murder by one Maude Delmont, aka "Madame Black." Delmont ran a blackmail scam, in which she'd provide young women to entertain men at Hollywood parties. A girl would claim that she was raped by some prominent man, who would then pay off Delmont to keep quiet. Delmont's story was so outrageous -- as was her character -- the prosecutors never called her as a witness.

But Arbuckle's name had already been dragged through the mud. The stories of bootleg liquor and wild women had done their damage. Arbuckle was banned from the screen. Although the ban was lifted in December of 1922, Arbuckle's career never recovered. He died of a heart attack in 1933, just as he was starting to recover financially and personally from his ordeal.

The allegations varied: that Arbuckle had raped Virginia, rupturing her insides with his 266-pound weight; that he was drunk and impotent and therefore angrily violated the girl with a wine bottle, or a Coke bottle, or a jagged piece of ice.

The booze-addled party-goers were not very consistent sources of information about exactly what happened. What is agreed upon is that Virginia (pictured, right) stumbled into a bathroom at some point on Monday. Arbuckle followed her. He later said that he found her hunched over the toilet, vomiting and in pain. He moved her to his bed, where he hoped she would sleep it off. He then rejoined the party.

Virginia's condition deteriorated. At some point, she became hysterical, screaming that she was dying and tearing her clothes off. Arbuckle and Delmont argued over what to do next.

The drunken party guests eventually decided to put the nude Virginia into a bathtub of ice water. Some reports have Arbuckle placing a piece of ice near or in Virginia's vagina, which may have contributed to the claim that he'd injured her insides with a sharp piece of ice.

Of course, this did nothing to help Virginia, who continued to scream. Arbuckle carried her to another room and summoned doctors. The guests, thinking Virginia was just hung over, continued to party.

Virginia was not taken to a hospital until Thursday. She taken not to a regular hospital, but to Wakefield Sanitorium, a maternity hospital known for performing quasi-legal abortions. Virginia died the next day, Friday, September 9. The cause of death was listed as peritonitis due to a ruptured bladder due to "external force."

The next day, Arbuckle was charged.

Arbuckle's defense attorney brought forth Josephine Roth, who testified that Virginia had five times availed her self of services at Roth's clinic: four times for abortions, and once to give birth to a baby. This information might seem to be unnecessarily slamming the victim, but turns out to be very relevant.

Although Virginia's ruptured bladder was produced as evidence in the trial, her reproductive organs had vanished after the autopsy. The autopsy was performed illegally on site at Wakefield Sanitorium, without consulting the coroner's office. One of the doctors overseeing the autopsy, Dr. Melville Rumswell, was reputed to be an abortionist.

Without the uterus and vagina, there was no way of knowing if Virginia had indeed suffered blunt vaginal trauma inflicted by Arbuckle.

Blunt-force trauma would have made a strong case against Arbuckle. But sharp instrument trauma would have cleared Arbuckle and pointed the finger at whoever performed a final, eventually fatal, abortion on Virginia Rappe.

There is also the mystery of why Delmont directed suspicion toward Arbuckle. She was a blackmailer. Why didn't she milk Arbuckle for money? Why didn't she simply allow the police to investigate the death of the young women? To these questions, we can add two others: Why had Virginia's uterus, ovaries, and vagina been removed and disposed of? And why was Virginia brought to a marginal facility like Wakefield Sanitarium?

One theory that answers the mysteries is this: Perhaps Delmont had a hand in arranging an illegal abortion that ruptured Virginia's bladder. When Virginia took ill, perhaps Delmont directed her to the Sanitarium, where the abortion may well have been performed -- where there would be accomplices who would also have a motive to keep the real reason for Virginia's death secret. And after the girl died, perhaps Delmont concocted the rape story to create a scandal that would divert attention away from herself.

This is, of course, speculation. But since an abortionist could face murder charges if a patient died -- and since an accomplice likewise would face a prison sentence -- it's the only scenario that explains the otherwise inexplicable behavior of Delmont and whoever got rid of Virginia's uterus and vagina.

Watch Who Really Killed Virginia Rappe? on YouTube. 

Sources: 

• Profile of an American Scandal   
• The Trial of Fatty Arbuckle  
•  An Underground Education, by Richard Zacks,/div>

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

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.

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 cervix, 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.

Watch Another Dead Black Woman on YouTube.

September 8, 1973: Teen Dies after Hospital Abortion

Inglewood Women's Hospital reopens as a clinic

Seventeen-year-old Kathy Murphy went to Inglewood Women's Hospital in Los Angeles County for an abortion on August 24, 1973. During the days after her abortion, Kathy suffered breathing problems and became semi-conscious, so Inglewood staff transferred her by ambulance to Centinela Hospital on September 7.

Later that night, Centinela transferred Kathy back to Inglewood, where John Dupont pronounced her dead at 1:20 on the morning of September 8. The autopsy found that Kathy had died of sepsis from the abortion; her cervix and uterus were infected, and her cervix covered with greenish-black pus.

The Inglewood facility was far better at evading responsibility than it was at providing adequate care. After Kathy's death, the next woman to die was 22-year-old Lynette Wallace, who underwent an abortion at "Inglewood Women's Hospital" on September 13, 1975, just a little over two years after Kathy Murphy's death.

Elizabeth Tsuji was the next to die. She had a saline abortion on February 2, 1978. The next to die was Cora Mae Lewis, age 23, following abortion under general anesthesia  in 1983.

Yvonne Tanner died next. The 22-year-old mother of one had an abortion performed July 10, 1984 at Inglewood. The last death I know about at Inglewood was Belinda Ann Byrd, a 37-year-old mother of three. She underwent an abortion by Steve Pine at Inglewood on January 24, 1987, when she was 19 weeks pregnant.

Belinda Byrd

Belinda's mother wrote to a Los Angeles district attorney: “I am the mother of Belinda Byrd, victim of abortionists at [Inglewood]. I am also the grandmother of her three young children who are left behind and motherless. I cry every day when I think how horrible her death was. She was slashed by them and then she bled to death ... and nobody cares. I know that other young black women are now dead after abortion at that address. ... Where is [the abortionist] now? Has he been stopped? Has anything happened to him because of what he did to my Belinda? Has he served jail time for any of these cruel deaths? People tell me nothing has happened, that nothing ever happens to white abortionists who leave young black women dead. I’m hurting real bad and want some justice for Belinda and all other women who go like sheep to slaughter.”

In the wake of the series of abortion deaths at Inglewood, the authorities inspected the place. Among other things, they caught an abortionist writing post-operative examination notes without even examining the patients. When the state closed Inglewood for numerous violations, the facility simply re-opened as Inglewood Women's Clinic; as a clinic rather than a hospital they were no longer subject to the same intense scrutiny and were able to remain in business.

Watch Deadly Abortion Hospital on YouTube.

Sources:

• LA County Coroner Report 73-14675
• Death certificate
• LA Superior Court Case No. C555261
• "Officials order closure of abortion hospital," (San Pedro, CA) News-Pilot, February 12, 1988

September 8, 1923: Who Killed Madge?

On September 8, 1923, 16-year-old Magdeline "Madge" Bowman died at Chicago's Garfield Park Hospital from an abortion performed there that day. Midwife Kate Seuer and a 20-year-old man named Walter Page were arrested on October 5 based on Madge's dying declaration, but Sauer's case didn't go to court until March of 1925. As of yet I've been unable to determine the outcome. 

• "Midwife and Youth Held Following Girl's Death," Chicago Tribune, September 9, 1923
• "Aged Woman Held to Grand Jury as Slayer," Chicago Tribune, March 19, 1925