Tuesday, March 25, 2025

March 25, 1962: The Forgotten Victim of a Pro Choice Hero

How to Be an Abortion-Rights Hero

Want an interesting exercise? Google "Dr. Henrie abortion". You'll get sites like these:

  • Professors profile Grove doctor who performed 5,000 abortions:
    Dr. W. J. Bryan Henrie
    GROVE, Okla. - In 1953, a strapping 17-year-old broke away from the small-town life he had known to join the U.S. Navy, fulfilling a duty to which he said he felt called.

    More than 50 years later, Hank "Buster" Henrie returned to the town of his youth to learn about a father he wanted to know better. His father, Dr. William Jennings Bryan Henrie, was Grove's only physician for many years. The doctor also operated an underground abortion clinic and performed 5,000 abortions over a 23-year period, according to a claim the doctor himself made at his 1962 trial.

    This past week, Dr. Henrie's son sat down with two professors from Pennsylvania's Gettysburg College, Jennifer Hansen and Kristen Eyssell, who are filming a research documentary about the doctor's life, his practice and the impact he had on Grove.

    "I learned that Dad was loved by the community," said the younger Henrie. "I didn't know the intensity of the love for my father, and I was surprised at the level of protection (against the law) he was given by the community."
    • Missives from the Grove:
    You want to know what the difference between Grove 1956 and Grove 2006 is? In 1956 abortions were illegal, but you could get one from Dr. Henrie and no one thought much of it. .... In 1956 when abortion was illegal, you could count on getting a safe, compassionate one from your local doctor and not necessarily have to pay a dime.
    What a swell guy!

    What About Jolene?

    But they're forgetting someone. There's one name you won't find in these hagiographic articles: Jolene Joyce Griffith. She died on March 25, 1962. According to her widower, Derrell, the kindly Dr. Henrie failed to properly sterilize his instruments, and, even though he knew that Jolene had a potentially life-threatening infection, simply sent her home with no arrangements for aftercare and without warning her family that she was potentially in danger.

    On February 18, Jolene and Joan Jones, who worked at Derrell's supper club, contacted Henrie, who ran some sort of private hospital in Grove, OK, to schedule abortions. Either Henrie or his staff told the women to wait until Henrie was done dealing with an active criminal abortion charge. He beat the charge on February 26.

    Jolene and Joan called again on Saturday, March 3 and were told to come check in for their abortions. By then, Jolene was 4 or 5 months into her pregnancy.

    The following day, Henrie, an osteopath, performed Jolene's abortion at 12:30 pm using his "iodine treatment" method. Joan had her abortion perpetrated at around 1:30  The two women, who had each paid $75 (nearly $800 in 2025*), shared a room as they waited to expel their dead babies. Joan expelled hers after two days. Jolene, however, did not expel her baby but instead developed chills and fever. 

    On Friday, March 9, Henrie tried twice more to dislodge the fetus, telling Jolene and Joan that she was "high and hard to get to." 

    Henrie sent Jolene home to Tulsa on March 11, still suffering from an infection. She was soon admitted to a hospital, where doctors struggled in vain to save her. She died there on March 25, leaving behind her husband and three minor children. She had told police about the abortion before her death. 

    When Police went to arrest Henrie on April 11, he seemed to be expecting them and merely asked if he could get his coat. 

    The Aftermath

    Derrell supported his family by operating Griff's Supper Club in Tulsa.  He won a $35,936 judgement against Henrie on behalf of the orphaned children. Henrie unsuccessfully appealed the judgement. 

    An investigation revealed a widespread abortion practice in which Henrie documented patients by their home towns rather than by name. 

    Henrie pleaded guilty to both Jolene's fatal abortion (first degree manslaughter) and for a non-fatal abortion on another woman. In his first bid for parole, in October of 1963, Henrie told the parole board that he had perpetrated more than 5,000 abortions during the 23 years he was practicing. 

    "Everybody from the ages of 6 to 90 knew what I was doing," he told the board. He said that state official even knew.

    This first bid for parole was rejected, leaving Henrie to end up serving 25 months of a 4-year sentence, after first being given a chance to get his affairs in order. After his release, Henrie went into receivership, saying he had only $123 to his name after selling his practice to pay his legal fees. Perhaps due to his financial situation, he went right back to doing abortions, much to the applause of people who don't even care enough about Jolene Griffith to learn her name. But then, to Henrie she was only "Miss Tulsa 1."

    He told his welcome-back party when he was released from prison that he's proud of his abortion work because, he told the UPI, "Mankind will drown in our own pollution, suffocate, or starve to death." In other words, he was a population-control zealot. 

    He mentioned "a woman" who "died because of an abortion I performed." He blamed her death not on his failures, but on the law, saying, "If I had been allowed the advantage of a hospital for my work the death could have been prevented, but the law barred me from proper facilities." But the law did not bar him from properly sterilizing his instruments, nor did it bar him from admitting his patient once he realized that she had life-threatening complications due to his failure to sterilize his instruments. 

    He pointed out that he had two acquittals for abortion charges prior to the death of "a woman," and had beaten the rap both times. Cleary he had connections that could have protected him if he had prioritized Jolene's life above his legal fees. But he didn't, she died, and he blamed everybody but himself.

    He was implicated in an abortion ring, which brought in an estimated $500,000 a year (Over $4 million in 2025) in November of 1970. He was only accused of suggesting abortions to women and then referring them to an unspecified practitioner, not of actually doing the abortions himself this time.

    When Henrie died in 1972, he was given a hero's sendoff in the obituaries. Jolene's death was mentioned as something that had happened to Henrie and had unfairly tarnished his otherwise exemplary work making sure abortions happened.



    For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion.

    *For comparison, an abortion performed in 2025 at 4 or 5 calendar months, or about 17 to 21 weeks as we now calculate pregnancy, could cost anywhere between $500 and $15,000, depending on gestational age and the facility the woman chooses.

    Sources:
    at 12:00 AM

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