Thursday, May 22, 2025

May 22, 2000: One of Seventeen Known Deaths at NAF Flagship

 

Kenneth Wright
The Fresno Bee reported that Family Planning Associates Medical Group (FPA) and abortionist Kenneth Wright were being sued by the family of 38-year-old Kimberly Neil, who died after Wright performed a safe and legal abortion on her. 

To the best of my knowledge, this makes at least 17 dead abortion patients for FPA. 

The suit says that FPA staff failed to properly monitor Kimberly, and failed to treat her properly when she stopped breathing during the abortion, performed on May 2, 2000. Kimberly slipped into a coma from which she never recovered. She died May 22. She left behind three children ages 19, 13, and 4.

Family Planning Associates Medical Group is a member of the prestigious National Abortion Federation, which purportedly assures that all members adhere to the highest standards of safety and care. I know of 16 women who have died after abortions at FPA. In addition to Kimberly, they are:



Sources: 

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

May 20, 1934: Third of Five Deaths Attributed to Dr. Justin Mitchell

SUMMARY: On May 20, 1934, 22-year-old Mary Schwartz died from complications of an abortion perpetrated by Dr. Justin Mitchell in Chicago.

Arranging an Abortion

Dr. Justin Mitchell
In May of 1934, 22-year-old Mary Schwartz told Marie Hansen, a coworker at the Illinois Meat Company in Chicago, that she was pregnant. The father of Mary's baby was Joe Henja, who was a foreman at the meat plant. 

According to both marriage and death records, Mary had a husband named Fred. Were they separated? Considering divorce? Or was Mary aborting her baby in an attempt to save her marriage? We have no way of knowing.

Whatever her reasons, Mary asked Marie for help arranging an abortion.

Marie told Mary that she would try to help the best she could. That same day, a Monday, Marie took Mary to Dr. Justin L. Mitchell's office south of Chicago's meatpacking district.

Marie had undergone an abortion at Mitchell's hands three years earlier, and, telling him that her friend “wants to get fixed up,” she negotiated a discount from the usual price of $50 to $30. Marie co-signed on a $25 loan, and lent Mary $5 “in dimes” from her own money.

The Abortion and Complications

The next morning, the two women again went to Mitchell's office. Marie waited outside during the abortion, then took Mary home with her to recover.

That evening, Mary took ill, so Marie called Mitchell and told him that Mary “was bad sick.” Mitchell told Marie to give Mary castor oil, and place warm towels on her abdomen to help with the pain. This did not alleviate Mary's pain, so on Marie took her back to Mitchell's office on Thursday evening and Friday morning. Marie told Mitchell, "Don't forget to scrape her. . . . and do a good job."

Hospital and Death

At 4:00 Saturday morning, Marie was very concerned and called Mary's lover.  Joe complied with Marie's request that he come right away and get Mary. He called his own doctor then rushed Mary to a hospital, where she died on May 20, 1934.

More Deaths Attributed to Mitchell

Mitchell had already been implicated in the abortion deaths of Ethel Vaughan in 1931 and Florence Jordan in 1933.

After Mary Schwartz's death he went on to be implicated in the abortion death of Mary Nowalowski in 1925 and of Alice Haggin in 1936, 

Context

Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

In fact, due to improvements in addressing these problems, maternal mortality in general (and abortion mortality with it) fell dramatically in the 20th Century, decades before Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion across America.

Sources:

Monday, May 19, 2025

May 19, 1924: Second Known Victim Attributed to Dr. Lou E. Davis

On April 2, 1924, 26-year-old homemaker Mary Whitney underwent an abortion at the Chicago office of Dr. Lou E. Davis. On May 17, Mary died at St. Mary's Hospital of complications of that abortion. Dr. Davis was held by the coroner on May 19. 

Dr. Lou E. Davis
Davis had already been implicated in the September 9, 1913 abortion death of 27-year-old Anna Adler. She went on to be implicated in another four Chicago abortion deaths:


In spite of these six dead young woman, David was never jailed. She was convicted of murder by abortion in 1934, likely for Irene's death, but her conviction was reversed by the Illinois Supreme Court.

She was implicated in an abortion perpetrated on 33-year-old Marie Cooper, a married mother of three in January of 1947 but I have found no evidence of a successful prosecution in that case. 

In September of 1947 Davis was charged with an abortion she has reportedly perpetrated on 22-year-old Mary Kaye in late August.

In August of 1947 Davis was performing an abortion on a 22-year-old woman who played accordion in a night club. The patient's hysterical screaming led the neighbors to call the police, who promptly took the woman to the hospital and Davis to jail.

In November of 1947 she was arrested on two charges of abortion and another of attempted abortion based on accusations from three young women, who of whom made their statements from their hospital beds.

Davis was finally stopped on December 14, 1948, when she was convicted of perpetrating an abortion. At that time she had six other abortion charges pending against her. 

A week after this conviction a criminal court adjudged Davis insane and sent her to Kankakee State Hospital, where she died Monday, May 3, 1954 at the age of 77.

Sources: 


Sunday, May 18, 2025

Is this really a battle between prolifers and prochoicers?

    For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
    Ephesians 6:12 NAS

When it comes to the abortion battle, it seems the lines are drawn pretty clearly: prolife vs. prochoice. No matter which side you align yourself with, it's easy to tell who is friend and who is foe, right? If you're prolife, the prochoicers are the enemy. If you're prochoice, the prolifers are the enemy. Right?

Well, it might be possible to put forth that argument from a purely secular perspective (although I don't think it holds water even from a secular perspective). But from a Christian perspective, the idea that this is a war of prolife versus prochoice -- or even "good guys" versus "bad guys" -- is bogus.

The Bible makes it pretty clear who the Enemy is. We can explore this Enemy at length at another time. Right now, we'll look closely at Ephesians 6:12, as a reminder of who the enemy is not:

    For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Let's turn to the Greek Lexicon and see what we can find about the words used in this passage.

We can start with the Greek word transliterated "pale" (pal ay). This word is used only in this passage, and means "wrestling (a contest between two in which each endeavours to throw the other, and which is decided when the victor is able to hold his opponent down with his hand upon his neck); the term is transferred to the Christian's struggle with the power of evil." So it looks like we're not talking about a "live and let live" situation, in which our Enemy will let us be if we ignore it. We're engaged in a wrestling match in which one, and only one, can emerge victorious.

We can then look at the Greek words transliterated "sarx," indicating "flesh (the soft substance of the living body, which covers the bones and is permeated with blood)...used of natural or physical origin, ...denotes mere human nature, the earthly nature of man apart from divine influence, and therefore prone to sin and opposed to God;" and "haima" (hah ee ma), "blood." We can take this then pretty literally -- we're not fighting flesh and blood, mortal creatures, men and women like ourselves.

Well, then, what are we fighting? Here's where it really gets interesting.

The word translated here as "powers" is the Greek transliterated "exousia" (ex oo see ah). Here are some of the ways this word is defined:

  • power of choice, liberty of doing as one pleases
  • physical and mental power
  • the ability or strength with which one is endued, which he either possesses or exercises the power of authority (influence) and of right (privilege)
  • the power of rule or government (the power of him whose will and commands must be submitted to by others and obeyed)
  • the leading and more powerful among created beings superior to man, spiritual potentates

I find it fascinating that Paul chose this word here, a word that means not just those in authority or those with power, but free will itself. Although this idea is not, I would presume, the crux of the passage, I think we'd do well to remember that our own free will is often ready to trip us up. The very capacity for making choices which the abortion advocates hold up as the ultimate good seems here cast as a potential pitfall. This stands as a warning to all Christians no matter what side of the abortion battle they've stationed themselves on: just because we can does not mean we should. Having been given free will, and the power to make choices, we are given at every moment of our lives the capacity to rebel against God and set ourselves up as petty tyrants over our own lives and the lives of those around us.

Again, though, this is an interesting side concept. Biblical scholars point to the meaning of this word in this passage as focusing on spiritual powers having control in the world, and over people.

"World forces of this darkness" is a concept built of three words:

The word translated as "world forces" is transliterated "kosmokrator." This word is used only in this passage, and means "lord of the world, prince of this age; the devil and his demons."

The word translated as "darkness" is transliterated "skotos," meaning "darkness of night; darkness of darkened eyesight or blindness; metaphorically of ignorance respecting divine things and human duties, and the accompanying ungodliness and immorality, together with their consequent misery in hell; persons in whom darkness becomes visible and holds sway."

We can pull this together into a picture of Satan and the way he works in the world, where he has dominion. Note also, that the word translated "darkness" can refer to "persons in whom darkness becomes visible and holds sway," this doens't indicate that these persons themselves are that which we are fighting, but the darkness that is being manifested in them. This is, perhaps, a fancy way of restating, "Hate the sin, love the sinner."

The third concept of what we are fighting is translated here, "spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places."

The word translated "spiritual" is transliterated "pneumatikos," and translates as "sprit." The specific meaning that fits in this passage is "belonging to a spirit, or a being higher than man but inferior to God."

The word translated as "wickedness" is transliterated "poneria," meaning "depravity, iniquity, wickedness; malice; evil purposes and desires." That's pretty straightforward.

The word translated "heavenly" is transliterated "epouranios," which translates pretty much into our current "heavenly." We tend to think of "heavenly" as meaning "good," or "superior," but in this passage it can't be indicitave of anything good or superior, and therefore must designate that we're talking about a spiritual realm, a higher reality, and not the physical world visible around us. This stands in contrast to what this passage says we do not contend against, i.e. "flesh and blood," or worldly enemies.

This is not meant to be the final word on how we can apply this passage, either in our lives or as we struggle to put an end to abortion.

May 18, 2001: Two Kids Left Motherless

Dr. Ronald Blatt

Cynthia Quintana-Morales, a healthy 30-year-old mother of two, entrusted herself to the care of Dr. Ronald D. Blatt at Eastside Gynecology. She reported for her abortion appointment on May 7, 2001.

The facility administered Brevital to sedate Cynthia, and she went into cardiac arrest. She was transported to Lennox Hill Hospital, where she died of anoxic encephalopathy on May 18. She left a 16-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter motherless.

Cynthia's husband of ten years, Andrew, sued Blatt and the practice, citing failing to use reasonable care, neglecting to heed Cynthia's condition, departing from accepted practices, performing contraindicated procedures, and lack of informed consent. Andrew asserted that his wife never would have consented to the abortion had she been adequately informed of the specific risks to her.

Blatt promptly closed the practice and reopened it as East Side Gynecology Services, effectively protecting his practice from financial liability.

Cynthia's husband settled with Blatt on March 30, 2008 for $1.25 million. Blatt's insurance covered the settlement.

Other women who died from Brevital mishaps include Susanne LoganKia JordenMelissa HeimDonna HeimDelores SmithGabriella AlonsoVenus OrtizDeanna BellTanya WilliamsonSuzanne Logan, and Debra Gray.

Watch Two Children Left Motherless on YouTube.

Thanks to Operation Rescue for these sources:

May 18: Happy Birthday Yamile Munoz

Yamile in the lap of her mother, Maggie Munoz,
with Mrs. Magaly Llaguno, Latin America Coordinator
for Human Life International

When Maggie Munoz learned that she was pregnant, she thought her only option was abortion. She was already an unmarried mother of four, and her friends and relatives told her that she already had "too many children" and that abortion was the "suitable solution." 

Ultrasound prior to the abortion revealed a normal 11-week pregnancy. 

Maggie underwent an abortion by D&C. After returning home, she was ill and depressed. 

Two weeks later, staff at the abortion facility called Maggie to tell her that the pathology report showed that the abortion was incomplete. Maggie returned to the clinic, where an ultrasound revealed a healthy fetus, still very much alive. But the employee told Maggie that there was "retained tissue" and gave her an appointment to return in a week for a second abortion procedure. 

Maggie didn't trust the clinic staff, and decided to go to her own doctor, who ordered an ultrasound showing a healthy 15-week fetus. 

Yamile was born May 18, 1992, perfectly healthy. Every day Maggie thanks God for her perfect daughter. 

Watch Happy Birthday, Yamile on YouTube.

(Source: Abortion Survivors [translation by Babelfish], from Right to Life League of Southern California, Fall 1992)

Saturday, May 17, 2025

May 17, 1876: Midwife Confesses to Fatal Abortion

Matilda Beringer, age 34 arranged for an abortion, which was perpetrated by midwife Johanna White at her New York practice in mid-March of 1876. 

Immediately Matilda began to experience severe pain so she went straight home and took to her bed. 

On Saturday, May 14, Dr. William Fayner was called on to care for her and found her suffering from peritonitis. When his efforts to treat her did not have the desired effect he brought in a second physician, Dr. Samuel Gluck, to consult. The two continued to treat her until her death on May 17.

Matilda's husband, Edward, told authorities the he'd heard gossip about his wife but that she had never said anything to him about the abortion. The police evidently had no reason to doubt him, since he was not charged as an accessory in his wife's death. When arrested, White admitted to having perpetrated the abortion and was held on $2,000 bond.

While looking for additional information about Matilda's death, I learned that While was implicated in the death of another woman, Mary Heinemann, less than six months later.

Watch Midwife Confesses to Fatal Abortion on YouTube.
Watch Midwife Confesses to Fatal Abortion on Rumble.

Source:

May 17, 1919: Unidentified Chicago Midwife

On May 17, 1919, 27-year-old nurse Gertrude Schaefer, a widow, died at Chicago's Wesley Hospital from septicemia caused by an abortion.

According to public records, Gertrude married her husband, John, in September of 1912, when she was 21 and he was 30.

At first police were told that Gertrude had committed the abortion on herself. However, during an inquest held at the hospital, police concluded that a midwife had perpetrated the abortion.

I have yet to find any sources that name the midwife in question.

Sources:

Friday, May 16, 2025

What does the Bible say about dealing with life's crises?

Let's take a look at some assorted Scriptures that can tell us how to approach abortion:

    2 Chronicles 25:3 "...The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, or the children be put to death for the fathers..."

I think this applies not only to rape and incest, but "He's a scumbag, why would I want to have his baby?" Should the fact that the father has sinned -- through abandonment of responsibilities, adultery, fornication, rape, or failing in any way to show the love due to our fellow human beings -- justify punishing the unborn little one? Do we punish children for the sins of their parents?

    Jeremiah 7:6 "...and do not shed innocent blood in this place..."

The blood of the fetus, who is about as innocent as you can get, is irrefutably shed in abortion. Where on this earth can a Christian say is an appropriate place for a Christian to shed innocent blood? There is no hospital, clinic, or doctor's office where God is not present, where His eyes do not see and His heart does not grieve. Does the fact that abortion takes place outside a church building make the shedding of innocent blood any less abominable?

    Matthew 25:40 "...whatever you did for the least of one of these my brothers and sisters, you did for me."

How much more "least" can one be than a tiny fetus in the womb? Do not Christ's words tell us that the very smallness and helplessness of the fetus compel us even more to see Christ, and to treat our unborn brethren as we would our Savior? This scripture alone should be enough to silence Christians who claim that abortion is acceptable in God's eyes. How can they justify it? On the grounds that Christ was willing to be crucified for our sins, therefore He won't mind being cut up with a curette or torn apart with forceps?

    Romans 12:1 "...offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God..."

Is making one's womb a place where a creation of God's is torn into little pieces in keeping with this scripture? Likewise, is abortion, the tearing into pieces of God's handiwork, a suitable act for inside our bodies, which are temples of the Holy Spirit?

    1 Corinthians 10:24 "Nobody should seek for his own good, but the good of others."

Is sacrificing the lives of our own unborn children in keeping with this scripture? Since when is the Christian called to ask others to sacrifice their own lives for his or her convenience? We are called upon to lay down our lives for one another, not to demand that our brothers and sisters die for our sakes.

    James 2:26 "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead."

Is resorting to abortion a very good sign of faith that God will provide for our needs? Can we be trusting God for daily bread, when we're ready to jump the gun and destroy one of His children out of fear of what will happen many months from now?

    1 Peter 4:9 "Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling."

How hospitable are we being when we deny our own offspring the safety of our wombs? If we refuse to love our own children, sheltered in our bodies, how can we claim to love our brothers and sisters who seek refuge in our homes?

I think people tend to get too literalist when they get to abortion and the Bible, and don't look at general precepts, which are:

1. Trust in God. Are we trusting Him to meet our needs when we act in fear? And isn't abortion really an act of fear, rather than of trust?

2. Reverence. What does it say of our reverence for God when we destroy His handiwork?

3. Love. How loving it it to tear another limb from limb?

And throughout the Old Testament are admonitions to be kind to animals -- to not muzzle the ox, etc. If we're to show kindness to beasts, how are we to treat our unborn offspring?

May 16, 2014: 17th FPA Death (That I Know Of)

An autopsy report tells the story of the seventeenth young woman I know of now to have died after an abortion at that National Abortion Federation flagship: Family Planning Associates Medical Group.

To preserve her confidentiality, I have given her the pseudonym "Kyla Ellis."

Kyla was 23 years old and about 11 weeks pregnant when she went to Family Planning Associate Medical Group at 601 S. Westmoreland Avenue in Los Angeles for an abortion on May 14, 2014. Like other young Black women, she was at higher risk of death than a white woman would be.

The day after the abortion, Kyla suffered agonizing abdominal pain. Her partner, whom I will call "Benjamin," called an ambulance, which rushed her to Centinela Hospital. She arrived at around 3:30 that afternoon. Kyla rated her pain at 10 on a scale of 10. Bright, fresh blood was flowing from her vagina. She couldn't pass urine at all. Hospital staff used a catheter to drain her bladder of about 200 cc of bloody urine.

Doctors decided that Kyla needed more intensive care than Centinela was able to provide. Kyla rode by ambulance to Kaiser West Los Angeles. She arrived shortly after midnight on May 16. At first she was awake, but at around 1:40 a.m. her gaze turned glassy and she became unresponsive. Staff took her to the lab for a CT scan, but on arrival Kyla went into cardio respiratory arrest. All efforts to revive her failed and she was pronounced dead at 2:45 a.m.

The autopsy found her uterus boggy and enlarged. The endometrium (lining) had been scraped away. 

Kyla had bled to death.

She's the seventeenth woman I'm aware of to have died after abortions at FPA. The others are: 

Watch 17th Known Abortion Death at YouTube.

Autopsy pages 12345678910, 1112131415



May 16, 1916: Was Dr. Albers Actually Guilty?

Portrait of a middle-aged white woman with short dark hair and fine features, wearing a lacy white top
Anna Albers

On May 16, 1916, 25-year-old Lucile Bersworth died in Chicago's German-American hospital after telling authorities that Dr. Anna Albers had perpetrated an abortion on her.

She also mentioned a man named Fred Krause, so he might have been her baby's father.

Though Albers was held by the coroner and indicted by a Grand Jury, the case never went to trial. She was rather a respectable physician, at least as of 1912, so she seems an unlikely abortionist.

Watch Not a Lot to Go On on YouTube.

Sources:

Thursday, May 15, 2025

Scriptures on the Unborn Guide Us Regarding Abortion

 Christians most often cite two scriptures when tackling abortion:

    Jeremiah 1:5 - "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart"


    Psalm 139:16 - "Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be."

These scriptures certainly speak clearly on the issue of God valuing and treasuring each of us, even before birth. They reflect the marvelous quality of God's handiwork, even before science knew exactly how detailed, complex, and sophisticated the fetus was. By eight weeks -- the time most abortions are performed -- every organ system is present in the fetus. The bones are formed, the hands and feet, kidneys and adrenal grands, eyes and ears and brain. The unborn child is God's handiwork, a masterpiece in progress. The scriptures recognize this.

Another scriptural reference to unborn life is the wrestling in the womb of Esau and Jacob within Rebekah's body (Genesis 25:21-23):

    Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, "Why is this happening to me?" So she went to inquire of the Lord. The Lord said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger." (NIV)

Of course, this scriptural passage was written long before ultrasound allowed us to observe behavior in the womb. But it turns out that twins do indeed wrestle in the womb, do touch and interact with one another. And God uses this normal human behavior, and Rebakah's unusual recognition of this behavior, to reveal the future of her descendants to Rebekah.

Perhaps the most famous act by a fetus in the Bible is the leaping of John the Baptist within Elizabeth's womb at the sound of her cousin Mary's voice (Luke 1:41-44):

    When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy." (NIV)

As John the Baptist was later to announce the coming of the Messiah to the multitudes as a man, he announced the Incarnation to his mother while still in the womb. His destiny was already in motion, and the Spirit of God already active in him, directing him, even before his birth.

If we search the Bible for signs of when God first begins to love each of us, we see that His love is eternal -- that it precedes our existence. But how are we, who live within the limitations of time, to live out that love to one another? We can not act in love toward those who, from within our prison of time, do not yet exist, except to be prepared to welcome our fellows when they arrive in this finite world, to live out their lives among us. To countenance abortion even in theory is to prepare to reject those who God holds in His mind, who He already loves with His perfect love. And to practice abortion in reality is to reject our brothers and sisters, in a very real and concrete way, by killing them. In doing so, we sin not only against our brothers and sisters by breaking the Commandment against murder; we sin against Christ by killing Him in them, for as we do to them, we do to Him.