March 23, 1979: Antiquated Abortion Kills Mother

SUMMARY: Lynn McNair, age 23, died March 23, 1979 after an abortion performed by Edward Rubin at Jewish Memorial Hospital in New York, NY.

Lynn Yvonne McNair, age 24, was 23 weeks pregnant when she went to Jewish Memorial Hospital in New York for an abortion in March of 1979.

Her doctor, Edward Rubin, chose the saline abortion method, in which amniotic fluid is removed with a large syringe and then replaced with a sterile salt solution strong enough to be toxic. Because of risks to the mother, Japan, Sweden, and the Soviet Union all banned the saline abortion method before abortion was even legalized in the United States.

The first injection of saline failed to kill the fetus, so Rubin injected a second dose of saline. Lynn went into convulsions and slipped into a coma. Amniotic fluid, tainted with the strong salt solution, got into her blood stream and damaged her lungs.

She died on March 23, leaving two children motherless.

Rubin continued to perform abortions, performing a fatal abortion on 28-year-old Dawn Mendoza at Women's Medical Pavilion in Dobbs Ferry, NY in 1988. Dawn also died from getting abortion material in her lungs, though in her case the abortion was done by dismembering the 22-week fetus, allowing both amniotic fluid and bits of the placenta to travel to the mother's lungs.

As you can see from the graph below, abortion deaths were falling dramatically before legalization. This steep fall had been in place for decades. To argue that legalization lowered abortion mortality simply isn't supported by the data.

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LDI Sources: "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; New York County (NY) Supreme Court Docket No. 4492-81