1971: Mystery Death in New Jersey after Legal New York Abortion Reported

Very little is known about “Jessie” except for the circumstances of her death, listed in a single news source. Sometime after the legalization of abortion on demand in New York but before an April 1971 edition of the New York Times was published, Jessie underwent an abortion in New York. She was probably one of many lured in by “abortion tourism” who had no idea she was going to die.

After undergoing the abortion, Jessie left New York City and went to New Jersey. (She was probably either a resident of the state or was making a stop on her way home when she became unable to finish the journey.) She died in New Jersey from complications of the abortion.

The April 11, 1971 New York Times noted Jessie’s death as one of 14 deaths from NYC abortions since legalization, but also noted the serious deficiencies of the reporting system. Only 3 of 17 non-hospital facilities (“clinics”) were regularly reporting any data, and municipal hospitals that carried out abortions failed to file the termination of pregnancy or TOP reports that were the basis of abortion statistics. From the incomplete data available, it was estimated that about half of pre-Roe legal abortion clients in New York were traveling from out of state like Jessie.

The article offered multiple perspectives on the early legalization. Some sections seemed to almost glorify abortion in New York (albeit while admitting the inherent emotional distress), while others reported that “there are still enough horror stories, enough unsolved problems, to make any report on the city's legal abortion scene sound like a report on the old illegal one.” 

One woman who underwent an abortion at a private hospital woke up to find that her abdomen had been cut open for a procedure that she never consented to; the authors theorized that she had been mistaken for a different client and received the wrong procedure. 

Clients at another facility were left traumatized after abortionists experimented on them by placing an EKG next to the client’s bed and listening to their child’s heartbeat deteriorating. They were effectively made to hear their children slowly die. These experiments were done without the consent of the clients. 

Yet another abortionist described a “typical” client as a minor under 15 whose parents did not know she was there or even that she was pregnant.

While also seemingly claiming that the legalization of abortion offered benefits, the NYT journalists reported inadequate reporting, failure of the Health Department to supervise facilities, horrific cases of malpractice and death. Abortion at even the supposedly high-quality hospitals was described as “inevitable misery.”