January 21, 1984: retained tissue leads to rare cancer

Nadine DuPont underwent an abortion in January of 1983. No complications were noted at the time, but Nadine had no idea of the fight for her life that she would endure for the next year.

Because of the abortion, Nadine was developing a condition that normally would have been quite rare: gestational choriocarcinoma. This occurred when the abortionist left tissue fragments in her uterus, which eventually grew into cancerous tumors. Her life was in danger even when she didn’t know it.

Almost a year later, Nadine went to Harper Hospital. The malignant tumors were no longer asymptomatic and she didn’t know what was happening to her. She was told she had a “probable molar pregnancy” and the hospital attempted to surgically remove it via suction. Nadine’s uterus was torn during this attempt and she had to be rushed back into the operating room. The internal damage was so severe that doctors performed an emergency hysterectomy, but even this did not save her life. Despite all attempts at treatment, she died at Harper Hospital in January of 1984.

Autopsy finally confirmed a final diagnosis; internal injury during the attempted treatment of what was now finally identified as gestational choriocarcinoma. Unlike most other gestational trophoblastic neoplasms or GTN (including most molar pregnancy, which was the hospital’s initial guess), GCC is highly malignant and metastasizes rapidly. Due to the way it grows, suction curettage alone was very unlikely to be effective.

It’s estimated that 1/4 to 1/3 of cases of gestational choriocarcinoma after previous non-molar pregnancies are caused by abortion or miscarriage. GTN in general is about 10 times more common after abortion or miscarriage than after birth. Nadine’s “safe and legal” abortion caused her slow, horrible death at the age of 23— one that would have been less than 10% as likely with live birth. While Harper Hospital was at fault for not treating her condition properly, the abortion caused the condition in the first place.

The CDC would not have counted Nadine’s death in abortion mortality statistics because she died a year after the abortion that triggered her fatal complications.

Wayne County Circuit Court case #85-507691 NM

The Scarlet Survey, mortality data for 1984 (see “Nadine AKA Jane Roe of Oakland County”)