The Full Gamut of Abortion Deaths, 1848 - 2000

Self-Induced in Boston, 1848

In January of 1848, 20-year-old Ann Gallager of Boston approached a married friend, Catherine Beath, with the news that she was pregnant. Ann asked Catherine to go with her to Dr. John Stevens to arrange an abortion. "The doctor refused, saying that he was an old man and did not do such things." Ann offered him $50, Catherine said, but Stevens insisted that "he would not do it for all the world." Ann was angry, and went home to try to abort the baby herself. She tried pouring boiling water over tobacco leaves and breathing the steam. She tried drinking some rum in which she had soaked rusty nails. Finally, she tried a knitting needle, which Catherine took away from her.

Ann retorted to Catherine that she was going to do the abortion one way or another. She went to Catherine's house to get the knitting needle for another attempt, this time producing some bleeding. By this time, in February, Ann's clothes were getting tight. She tried vigorous exercise and pressing hard on her abdomen with her hands. In March, Ann went to Dr. Stebbins, asking for some abortifacient pills. She described her prior attempts at abortion, including the bleeding after the knitting needle attempt. "I told her if she continued to use the means thus far employed, she would kill herself."

As March wore on, Ann took ill. She gave a sworn statement that on March 15, she had gone to Dr. John Stevens for an abortion, which he had done with instruments. Two days later she expelled the dead baby, a boy. Ann's condition continued to deteriorate until her death on March 25. Stevens was arrested, but since the only witness against him was a prostitute who had a reputation as a liar, Stevens was acquitted. Since he had, by Ann and Catherine's word, repeatedly refused to perpetrate the abortion, my own belief is that she implicated Stevens as revenge for those refusals.

Abortifacient in Birmingham, Alabama, 1889

In 1889, Delia Mae Bell, age 14, lived with her mother, Mrs. McDermott, in Birmingham, Alabama and worked in her mother's dressmaking shop. When Delia took violently ill on a Sunday morning, the neighbors were suspicious. The first doctor called to the scene was L.G. Woodson. He arrived about 6:30 and found Delia in convulsions. He gave her a subcutaneous morphine injection then went to breakfast. When he returned, he found her once again convulsing, so he sent for Dr. W.C. Foster. He took note of the convulsions, and of a suspicious bottle. He called in yet another physician, Dr. W.E. Morris. "All the aids known to medical science were tried without avail, and about 3 o'clock in the afternoon it was decided to resort to an operation." Later, Morris said, "There were hurrying feet in the hallways, and then came a hush over the place. The girl was dead." This was Monday, March 25, 1889. The doctors notified the coroner and turned over a bottle to him that had contained an abortifacient traced to a man named George A. Foule of East Birmingham. Foule was a saloon keeper. He called his potion a treatment for "blood diseases and feminine troubles". 

A Midwife and a Possible Lay Abortionist, Chicago, Early 20th Century

At about 11 a.m. on March 25, 1909, 37-year-old homemaker Carrie Pearson died at Ravenswood Hospital in Chicago from septicemia caused by an abortion. On her deathbed, Carrie said that the abortion had been perpetrated by 39-year-old midwife Caroline Meyer of on March 18 at 447 Wells Street. Meyer was held by the coroner but the case resulted in a hung jury. Carrie's death followed the typical pattern of a Chicago abortion death of the era: An abortion performed by a midwife (or physician), followed by admission to a hospital and subsequent death, often after naming the perpetrator in a deathbed statement. During her murder trial in Carrie's death, Meyers was also under indictment for the abortion death of Nellie O'Neill.

Homemaker Celia M. Schultz, age 29, died in a Chicago home from septicemia caused by an abortion on March 25, 1910. A woman named Mary Rommell was indicted for felony murder by a grand jury. The source document does not indicate her profession, or that the case ever went to trial. My best guess based on the resources I have at hand is that Rommell was a professional lay abortionist.

Doctors? New York, 1916

On March 25, 1916, Angela Raia of Paynter Avenue, Astoria, died, evidently from the results of an abortion. Her husband Ignazio sued two doctors, Harlan E. Linehan and Dennis McAuliffe, for $400, asserting that their negligence had caused Angela's death. McAuliffe joined the military and went to France, moving him out of reach of the suit. Linehan joined a medical advisory board and was busy with his duties at the time the suit was filed. He offered to settle with Angela's husband, saying that he wanted "to relieve himself of the annoyance of the case." Angela's husband took the offer. I've been unable to determine if the doctors had perpetrated the abortion or had failed to provide adequate aftercare or both. If they had been the ones to do the abortion, that would have made it typical of criminal abortions, most of which were perpetrated by doctors.

A Doctor in Chicago, 1933

Emil Gleitsman

In the spring of 1933, Edward Dettman's 21-year-old girlfriend, Mary Colbert, told him that she'd missed her period and wanted an abortion.  Edward took her to Dr. Emil Gleitsman. Afterward, Mary took ill and confided in her aunts. Mary died on March 25. Gleitsman had previously been was indicted for 22-year-old Lucille van Iderstine's abortion death in 1928 and for perpetrating a fatal abortion on Jeanette Reder in 1930.
A Doctor in Oklahoma, 1962

Dr. Henrie

On March 3, 1962, Dr. W.J. Bryan Henrie, an osteopath, performed an abortion on 33-year-old Jolene Griffith at his clinic in Grove, Oklahoma. Jolene developed an infection, and, according to her survivors, Griffith abandoned her and provided no care to treat the infection. On March 10, Jolene was admitted to a hospital in Tulsa. She died there on March 25, leaving behind a husband and three minor children. Henire was conviced, and served 25 months of a 4-year sentence. Upon his release, he went right back to doing abortions. Jolene's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a doctor. Abortion rights activists continue to revere Henrie, and to totally ignore the fate of Jolene Griffith. 
Safe and Legal in Chicago, 2000

At a National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar in the 1990s, Michael Burnhill of the Alan Guttmacher Institute scolded Lichtenberg for "playing Russian roulette" with patients' lives by performing risky abortions in an outpatient setting and treating serious complications on site in his procedure room rather than transporting them to a hospital. Evidently Lichtenberg chose not to listen to Burnhill's warning.
On March 25, 2000, 22-year-old Maria Rodriguez went to Steve Lichtenberg's Albany Medical Surgical Center, a National Abortion Federation member clinic in Chicago, for a late second trimester abortion. Lichtenberg estimated her pregnancy at 18 weeks and went ahead with the what a later expert consultant called "a seemingly uncomplicated (albeit short) procedure." At about 9:00 a.m., Maria was showing signs of shock from hemorrhage. The expert consultant pointed out that Lichtenberg had failed to notice that he had ruptured Maria's uterus. Lichtenburg flushed out her uterus with a dilute solution of Vasopressin, a hormone used sometimes to control bleeding. He also had pressure applied to her uterus. But, the consultant noted,"At no time were further attempts made to ascertain the cause of the bleeding or to explain the discrepancy between the marked decrease of hematocrit and the seemingly moderate blood loss."

Lichtenberg diagnosed DIC, a clotting disorder caused by triggers such as amniotic fluid in the blood stream. He started treating Maria with Fresh Frozen Plasma (FPP) at 9:34. Her hematocrit continued to fall, and she was showing abnormal EKG readings. Her heart was racing and she was continuing to bleed. She wasn't given a transfusion, or transported quickly to a hospital so that a transfusion could be administered there. Lichtenberg also didn't administer any additional medications to help control Maria's bleeding.

At around 10:15 a.m., Maria appeared to have been somewhat stabilized, but "no attempt was made to determine the cause of the bleeding with ultrasound evaluation" or to tie off the bleeding artery. By 10:30, her hematocrit had fallen to 15%, meaning she had less than half the red blood cells needed to carry oxygen to her brain. Finally, an hour and a half after Maria suffered her life-threatening injury, and an hour after Lichtenberg had diagnosed the dangerous clotting disorder, it occurred to somebody to call 911 and have Maria taken to a properly equipped hospital. By the time she arrived there, her hematocrit was 3.5%, less than 10% of what it should have been. Doctors at the hospital tried to save her, to no avail, she died that evening, leaving behind a four-year-old daughter.
Other women to die from abortions at FPA facilities include Denise Holmes, Patricia Chacon, Mary Pena, Josefina Garcia, Lanice Dorsey, Joyce Ortenzio, Tami Suematsu, Deanna Bell, Susan Levy, Christina Mora, Ta Tanisha Wesson, Nakia Jorden, Maria Leho, Kimberly Neil, and Chanelle Bryant.

Typical Abortion Deaths a Century Ago

Typical Late 19th Century Abortion

On March 24, 1870, Catherine "Kate" Shields died in Jersey City from an abortion perpetrated by Dr. Charles Cobel. "The infamous doctor was arrested, as was also one Patrick Waterson, charged with having outraged the person of the unfortunate girl." The coroner's jury also reprimanded Mrs. Downes, who kept a Jersey City boardinghouse, for failing to properly look after Kate.

During the coroner's inquest, a letter from Cobel to Waterson was produced, in which he demanded $25 for the abortion, threatening to sue if he did not get his fee. Waterson testified that his only knowledge of Kate was that there had been a servant by that name working in the boardinghouse. However, on her deathbed Kate named him as the only man she had ever been with.

Cobel had already been held responsible for the 1856 death of Catharine DeBreuxal, the 1858 death of. Amelia Weber, the 1865 death of Emma Wolfer. He was later implicated in the 1875 death of Antoinette Fennor.

Two Typical Early 20th Century Chicago Abortions

On March 24, 1905, 28-year-old Ida Alice Bloom, a Swedish immigrant working as a domestic servant, died suddenly in Chicago from septic peritonitis caused by an apparent criminal abortion perpetrated on or about March 15. Dr. Julius N. Goltz as arrested as a principal, and James McDonald as an accessory. Both men were held without bail by a coroner's jury. Alice's abortion was typical of pre-legalization abortions in that it was performed by a physician.

On March 24, 1915, 31-year-old Frances Kulczyk died at her Chicago home from an abortion performed by an unknown perpetrator. Most Chicago abortions of that era were perpetrated by either doctors or midwives.

From Criminal in Chi-Town to Safe-n-Legal in New York

Criminal in Chicago -- Three Typical Deaths

On March 23, 1905, Mrs. Ida Pomering, a 30-year-old German immigrant, died in Chicago from an abortion performed earlier that day.Apollonia Heinle was held by the coroner's jury for Ida's death. Heinle was identified in a death record as a doctor, but is elsewhere identified as a midwife. This does not rule out her being a doctor, since female obstetricians were, at that time, typically called midwives. Heinle suffered no long-term ill effects from Ida's death. She was still a practicing midwife-abortionist in 1909, when the Illinois State's Attorney declared "war on midwives" as an approach to stamping out abortion in the state. Doctors, however, were also quite commonly identified as the guilty parties after abortion deaths in Chicago in that era.

On March 16, 24-year-old Dora Swan of Chicago underwent an abortion at the hands of Dr. Louise Achtenberg. Achtenberg came to the home several times to care for Dora, but her condition was not improving. Her family called the family physician, Dr. C. S. Friend. He had her admitted to Englewood Union Hospital in Chicago to be treated. Dora died from post-abortion infection on March 23. Achtenberg, a doctor identified as a midwife due to her obstetric work, went on to be implicated in the 1909 abortion deaths of Stella Kelly and Florence Wright. She was also implicated in the 1921 abortion death of Violet McCormick. Later, in 1924, it was Dr. Louise Achtenberg who was held responsible for the death of Madelyn Anderson. In spite of all of these deaths, I can find no record that Achtenberg was ever incarcerated.

On March 23, 1917, 19-year-old Mary Conners died at Chicago's County Hospital, refusing to name the abortionist who had fatally injured her that day. Abortions in Chicago at that time were typically perpetrated by physicians or midwives.

Safe and Legal in New York

Lynn 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.

Criminal in Chicago, Safe and Legal in Atlanta

Early 20th Century Chicago

On March 21, 1911, 33-year-old homemaker Katherine "Kate" Kammer died of septic peritonitis at German Hospital in Chicago from an abortion perpetrated by a "midwife" around 5 days earlier. For reasons not given in the source document, there was never any prosecution for Kate's death.

On March 21, 1916, 30-year-old Mrs. Anna Krauz died at her home on Union Avenue in Chicago from infection caused by a perforated uterus. An abortion had been perpetrated by midwife Anna Vidicas, who was held by the Coroner but acquitted on trial.

On March 21, 1927, 25-year-old Nancy Dawson, an immigrant from England, died on-site from a criminal abortion performed that day. Dr. J.F. Peck and midwife Christine Sedwig were indicted for felony murder on April 1. The fact that both a doctor and a midwife were involved suggests that the abortion, as was common in Chicago in that era, was perpetrated by a midwife who called in a physician when her patient became ill.

Safe and Legal in the Early 21st Century

On March 21, 2008, 23 year old Sherika Mayo went to Summit Medical Associates in Atlanta, Georgia for the elective abortion of her 25 week unborn child. Sherika had sickle cell trait along with low levels of hemoglobin in her blood -- only 7.3 gms when a normal range for an adult woman is between 12 and 16. Abortionist Tyrone Maloy proceeded with the abortion anyway. While in the recovery room, Sherika went into cardiac arrest and was transferred to Atlanta Medical Center while EMS workers continued CPR. Emergency surgery was performed to remove Sherika's damaged uterus and repair an injured bowel. After surgery, Sherika showed symptoms of DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulopathy, a life-threatening clotting disorder sometimes caused by trauma or infection). She was treated with blood products but died in the I.C.U. The Georgia State Medical Board reviewed the case and determined that abortionist Tyrone Malloy, “failed to conform to minimal standards of acceptable and prevailing medical practice.”

An Atypical and Two Typical Criminal Abortions

The first death we memorialize today was highly unusual in that it was an amateur abortion.

Anna Gosch's boyfriend, Mr. Edwards, admitted that they'd had a sexual relationship, and that she had called him to tell him that her period was late. He admitted that he went to the town of Kearney, and got a hotel room with the intent of perpetrating an abortion. Edwards wouldn't say what happened in the hotel room. He did say that the next day he took her to her home, and using a speculum he tried to insert a catheter into her uterus, which at the time was a method often used by doctors to cause an abortion. Edwards, however, couldn't get the catheter inserted. He said that Anna went upstairs and returned with a catheter with a wire in it, which would stiffen it for insertion. He said that the wire did its job in allowing him to get the catheter inserted. He then bent the wire and threw it away. A witness in the later trial, however, said that Edwards denied having done the abortion himself. He said that Anna had gone upstairs, then come down and told him that she thought "she had done it." 

Anna's abortion was unusual in that it was performed by an amateur, rather than by a doctor,as was the case with perhaps 90% of criminal abortions.

A physician, Dr. Cameron, was called on Thursday, March 15, to care for Anna. He saw her twice a day until the Monday before her death. Dr. Cameron testified,"I asked her what had been done to make her sick, and she said there had been a man had passed an instrument into her with a wire in it, rubber with a wire in it. I asked her when that had been done, and she said Monday; she thought it was Monday night." When asked about who the man was, "She said he was a man who traveled for rubber goods or instruments of some kind, said he was a traveling man."

Anna Gosch died on Tuesday, March 20, 1906, at 6:10 PM. Edwards was convicted of homicide. Anna's death is similar to the death of "Daisy" Roe, a systems analyst who died in 1990 after allowing her boyfriend to attempt to perform an abortion on her with a piece of aquarium tubing. Unlike Anna's boyfriend, however, Daisy's boyfriend was not prosecuted for her death.

The other two abortions were typical Chicago abortions, perpetrated by physicians.

On March 20, 1916, 19-year-old housemaid Bertha Carlson died at South Park Hospital in Chicago from septic infection as a result of a criminal abortion. On her deathbed, Bertha identified Dr. A. F. Butler as her abortionist. At the time of Bertha's death he was suffering from some sort of paralysis that kept him from testifying at an investigation into her death.

On March 20, 1926, 19-year-old Alice Annalora died at the County Hospital in Chicago from complications of an abortion performed that day. Dr. Wilford Vine was booked for Alice's death, as was her husband, Joseph Annalora. Vine was indicted for felony murder. Ultimately, the coroner was unable to determine the legal status of the abortion that killed Alice, so Dr. Vine and Mr. Annalora were released. Alice's abortion was typical of criminal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.

Dismally Fruitful Research

Rena Armstrong

Using a new trick I learned by watching "Long Lost Family," I found out the name of the girl I'd dubbed "Eudora." She had died on February 28, 1930 after an abortion by Dr. Charles C. Keester in Wichita, Kansas. Her name was Rena Armstrong.

I went looking for additional information using Rena's name on a newspaper database and learned that she was far from the only abortion death attributed to Keester. The others were:

• Mrs. Virgil Rector, late November or early December, 1921
• Hattie Myers, age 19, March 7, 1922
• Hazel Hadicke, age 19, December 16, 1923
• Loren Franklin, age 19, August, 1924
• "Bonnie," age 18, August, 1924

Keester had managed to avoid prosecution for one of those deaths because the woman had named him as her abortionist upon admission to the hospital rather than when clearly on her deathbed. I don't have as much information about the other deaths. 

I had wanted for so long to believe that quack abortionists had been easy to catch and imprison in the pre-legalization days. Clearly, when legal protection is again extended to the youngest among us we will need to have mechanisms for identifying and successfully prosecuting abortionists.

Here is my original entry on Rena's death:

On Monday, January 6, 1930, "Mike" brought 17-year-old "Eudroa" from Wellinton, Kansas, to Wichita to seek an abortion at the hands of Dr. Charles C. Keester. They knew his name and looked him up in the phone book to find him. The couple told Keester that the girl was pregnant and wanted "an operation to get rid of the condition." Keester put her in some sort of reclining exam chair and examined her, then used instruments on her as Mike stood at her head and observed. Keester then helped Eudora from the chair and sent the couple to a hotel half a block away, where Keester kept his patients -- much the same way late-term abortion doctors currently keep their patients in motels. Mike paid $40 in cash and took Eudora to the hotel, where they registered as a married couple. On the 9th, Mike tried to contact Keester because Eudora was unwell, much as Jennifer Marbelli's family had been unable to reach LeRoy Carhart when she was ailing after her abortion. Mike wasn't able to reach Keester until January 10, when he went to the hotel, examined Eudora, and used some instruments to treat her. On Saturday, Eudora seemed better. On Sunday at about 2:30, Keester visited the hotel and said that Eudora was well enough to go home. Mike took Eudora to his mother's home in Wellington, telling her about the abortion. On Monday night, Eudora took ill. Mike told Eudora's sister what had happened, and the family summoned Dr. McGrew, who examined Eudora and recommended that she be taken to a hospital. She was admitted the next morning, January 14. She was suffering peritonitis. Dr. Van Deventer was summoned on January 23, and he and McGrew examined Eudora. They found her in grave shape, and summoned Dr. Snyder. Snyder performed surgery on January 31, with Dr. McGrew assisting with anesthesia, to try to save Eudora's life. McGrew testified later that Eudora's abdomen had been full of abscesses. Eudora's condition continued to deteriorate. On February 4, she was given a blood transfusion. On the evening of Feb 5 or 6, she asked everybody but her stepmother to leave the room. She said, "Mother, I am going to die. What Dr. Keester did to me is going to kill me." She then told of the trip to Wichita and the abortion. On February 12 Eudora became irrational, but she continued to linger until her death on February 28. Keester was convicted of manslaughter in Eudora's death, and his appeal was denied.

Over 100 Years of Fatal Abortions

1875: Abortionist Seen as Villain

News coverage of the coroner's inquest into the March 7, 1875 death of 20-year-old Antoinette Fennor (Click on her name to learn more.) gives us an interesting glimpse into how abortion was practiced, investigated, and prosecuted in Brooklyn in the late 19th century, and how the public responded to abortion deaths. They certainly didn't take the bored, "You pays your money and you takes your chances" attitude I see people taking toward modern abortion deaths.  The verdict was that Antoinette died of peritonitis March 7, 1875, from an abortion performed about February 26 by Mrs. Maxwell, whose first name I have yet to determine. During the trial, which took place in a packed courtroom, unlike the empty courtroom for the Kermit Gosnell trial, spectators glared at -- practically hissed at -- the defendant. 


1908: Elderly Midwife-Abortionist Sentenced to Joilet

On March 7, 1908, unmarried seamstress Nellie Shuff, age 26, of New Berlin, Illinois, died at Wesley Hospital in Chicago. Nellie had lived as a boarder in the home of widow Martha Scott. The coroner's jury determined that she died from complications of an abortion that had been perpetrated at a home on Forest Avenue. Seventy-one-year-old midwife Johanna White was arrested, tried, and sentenced to one to ten years at Joliet for the death. White was so old and feeble that she had to be carried in and out of the courtroom, and was not expected to survive the length of her sentence. Nellie's fatal abortion was typical of Chicago abortions of the time, most of which were perpetrated by doctors or midwives.


1913: Tangential Murder Diverts Media Attention

The March 7, 1913 death of 16-year-old Edna Frederickson was tangled up in a tale of murder and intrigue. Edna was employed at a Chicago candy shop for $2 per week, and turned her wages over to her mother. Wanting to have some money for herself, and unhappy at home, Edna turned to a co-worker at the candy company, a married woman who went by the names of Lillie Dearborn and Kitty Young, who helped to arrange the abortion that took Edna's life. However, a tangentially-involved murder tended up gaining all the media attention.


1919: Doctor Has Woman's Body Dumped in Ravine

Inez Reed, age 28, died in San Mateo, California on March 7, 1919 after an abortion perpetrated by Dr. Eprhaim Northcott, a relative of the notorious serial murderer Gordon Northcott. I've recently found so much additional information on Inez's death that I have to completely rewrite her story.


1975: Deliberately Doing Incomplete Abortions

On March 4, 1975, Robert Julius Sherman performed a safe and legal abortion on 16-year-old Rita McDowell, who was in the second trimester of her pregnancy. Rather than admit her to the hospital for the then-standard saline abortion, Sherman performed a vacuum aspiration abortion usually used for first trimester abortions. When Rita was discharged, her mother was informed that she would probably expel the fetus that night. As they left the office, Rita told her mother, "Oh, Mama, I feel like I had one hundred needles in me."

Rita did not expel the fetus. Instead, she developed a fever. Her mother called Sherman's facility on March 5 to seek care for her daughter. She said that Sherman would not speak to her, and that the receptionist told her to bring Rita in two days later. In the early morning hours of March 7, Rita awoke screaming, then collapsed in her mother's arms. Doctors at the hospital where Rita was taken removed the macerated fetus, but she died from massive infection just after midnight on March 8.

An investigation into Rita's death revealed evidence that Sherman deliberately performed incomplete abortions so that he could charge more for follow-up care. Sherman was charged with murder in Rita's death, and prosecutors presented witnesses and evidence that Sherman re-used disposable medical equipment, failed to perform tests to verify pregnancy, failed to do pathology examinations of abortion tissues, allowed a nurse's aide to perform surgery, and falsified medical records.

Sherman plea-bargained, getting the murder charge dropped in exchange for a guilty plea on the perjury charges. The prosecutor defended the plea bargain on the grounds that the felony convictions would block Sherman from ever practicing medicine again. Sherman served two years in a federal prison, then set up a legal abortion practice in Boston.

1978: Astonishing Fallout for Fatal Abortion

Gloria Small, a 43-year-old mother of six, went to Ronald Tauber for a safe ane legal abortion. Despite Gloria's obesity, asthma, chronic lung disease, and family history of high blood pressure, Tauber elected to perform the 15-week abortion at his Orlando Birthing Center on March 7, 1978.

Gloria's uterus was punctured in the abortion. Tauber packed Gloria's uterus with medical gauze, which appeared to have controlled the bleeding. However, the next day he removed the packing and the hemorrhage resumed. She was not transferred to a hospital until 30 hours after she had been injured, and died despite an emergency hysterectomy. The medical examiner said that Gloria's medical history should have precluded performing an abortion in an outpatient setting. The medical board faulted him with failing to transfer to a hospital as soon as he'd had the bleeding stabilized with packing, and with trying to remove the packing in a setting where there was no blood available for a transfusion. A court-appointed panel found Tauber negligent in Gloria's death.

The repercussions for the 31-year-old Tauber were astonishing, given the legality of Gloria's abortion. He was dismissed from the staff of two hospitals, had his medical license suspended, and was charged with manslaughter. However, I have found no record that the case ever went to trial.

A 1974 Death I Just Discovered

While doing online research about the death of Chloe Colt, I ran across the name Gina Gardner for the first time and was able to add her to the Cemetery of Choice.

Gina Lea Gardner, age 17, died July 27, 1974 after an abortion performed by Dr. James R. Lund in West Pasco, Florida

Gina, a cheerleader at Gulf Comprehensive High School in West Pasco, went into convulsions almost immediately after Lund administered the local anesthetic Lidocaine for the fourth time while Gina was still under the effects of an initial dose of Demerol. Gina was hospitalized but died the following day.

Gina's mother, Patricia Kennedy, had to wrangle to even bring the case to court because of a recently-passed Florida law regarding medical malpractice cases.

I've Learned the Name of Sharpe's Dead Patient

Dr. Reginald Sharpe has a history of malpractice, including the death of a 26-year-old patient on January 19, 2008. After poking around online I learned that her name was Chloe Mamell Colts. 

Life Site News reported that Sharpe had perforated Chloe's uterus, and once the instruments were inside her pelvic cavity had managed to cut a uterine blood vessel and lacerate her intestines and her liver. 

According to her death certificate, the fatal abortion was performed on January 11. She died at St. John Hospital in Detroit.

Typical Abortion Deaths, Different Times and Places

Each of the deaths we commemorate today was a fairly typical example of how abortion was practiced in different times and places in the United States during the 20th century.


Typical Chicago Abortion Death, Early 20th Century

On February 29, 1916, Dr. Nels Meling was summoned to the home of 43-year-old homemaker Augusta Bloom on North Kedzie Avenue in Chicago. The next day he sent her to Norwegian Deaconess Hospital. While there she made a deathbed declaration that she was suffering from the effects of an abortion perpetrated by Dr. James R. Struble at his office. On March 3, 1916, Augusta died from massive infection. Struble was indicted by a Grand Jury on March 21, but the case never went to trial. 

Two years earlier, Struble had been implicated in the abortion death of 24-year-old Frances Fergus, but that case had not gone to trial either. This was fairly typical for Chicago abortions of that era: a doctor or a midwife, often running very thinly-veiled abortion ads in newspapers, would send multiple women to the grave without losing either their license or their freedom.

Typical Pittsburgh Abortion Death, Early 20th Century

Nikola Wojnovich of Pittsburgh said that on Saturday, February 16, 1918, his 26-year-old wife, Mary Wojnovich, seemed unwell after dinner, very unstable on her feet. Nikola asked her what was wrong, and she said she didn't know, perhaps she had caught cold while washing the windows. She asked him to help her to bed. He then sent for Dr. Zabaranko, who examined her and prescribed some medication.

The next day Zabaranko returned and diagnosed her with inflammation of the uterus and instructed Nikola to put an ice pack on her abdomen. On Thursday, February 21, Mary's condition was worse, and Nikola summoned Zabaranko again. When he examined her, he called an ambulance and sent her to Pittsburgh's South Side Hospital, where Dr. S. A. Beddall admitted her for treatment for “incomplete abortion and pelvic peritonitis due to self inflicted abortion at home 2 weeks ago.”

After Mary's death, at about 2:00 on the morning of Saturday, March 3, Dr. Henry Klinzing jotted a note to the coroner on a prescription pad saying that Mary, a homemaker and Croatian immigrant, had made a deathbed statement to him on March 1, saying “she inserted a stick of wood into the uterus to bring on menstruation feeling she was pregnant. From this she developed a pelvic peritonitis and subsequently a septic pneumonia from which she died.”

Mary's abortion is in keeping with turn-of-the-20th-century Pittsburgh abortion deaths, which heavily inclined toward self-induced, in contrast to Chicago abortions of the same period, which were predominately perpetrated by doctors and midwives.


Typical Newly Liberalized New York Abortion Death

"Connie" was 31 years old when she took advantage of the liberalized law and underwent a safe and legal abortion in New York on March 3, 1972. She went into cardiac arrest during the abortion. Attempts to save her life were futile; she died on March 8, five days after her abortion. She left behind one child. 

The 1970 liberalization of abortion made New York an abortion mecca until the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling that abortionists could legally set up shop in any state of the union. In addition to "Connie," these are a few of the women I know of who had the dubious benefit of dying from the newfangled safe-and-legal kind of abortion in pre-Roe New York:

• Carmen Rodriguez, July 19, 1970, salt solution intended to kill the fetus accidentally injected into her bloodstream
• Barbara Riley, July 20, 1970, sickle-cell crisis triggered by abortion recommended by doctor due to her sickle cell disease
• "Amanda" Roe, September 22, 1970, sent back to her home in Indiana with an untreated hole poked in her uterus
• Maria Ortega, October 10, 1970, fetus shoved through her uterus into her pelvic cavity then left there
• Margaret Smith, June 16 1971, hemorrhage from multiple lacerations during outpatient hysterotomy abortion
• "Roxanne" Roe, May 13, 1972, given overdose of abortion sedatives
• "Danielle" Roe, May 17, 1972, air in her bloodstream

With the proliferation of fly-by-night outpatient abortion in the state, New York City Chief Medical Examiner Milton Helpern expressed concern that ill-equipped and poorly-staffed freestanding legal abortion facilities were posing a danger to women. Certainly they were not reducing the real danger to women, merely the perceived risk. 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. The women's deaths were just demoted from homicide, punishable by law, to mere medical mishaps not worth anybody's concern. What ended with legalization wasn't women dying from abortions; it was society caring if they died.

Typical National Abortion Federation Abortion Death

Abortion entrepreneur Edward C. Allred

Sixteen-year-old Patricia Chacon had no way of knowing that she would become the second of more than a dozen women for whom a safe, legal abortion at one of Edward "Fast Eddie" Allred's chain of abortion mills would be the last choice she would ever make. Patricia underwent a safe and legal second-trimester abortion at the hands of either Allred or Leslie Orleans at Allred's Avalon Hospital in Los Angeles on the morning of March 3, 1984. Patricia retained fetal tissues, so she was scheduled for a second procedure that afternoon to complete the abortion.

There are conflicting stories as to what happened next. Allred claimed that Patricia died of an embolism during the second surgery. (He pronounced her dead at 4:30 PM.) Patricia's parents claim that the child bled to death while left unattended. An autopsy found numerous catgut sutures in Patricia's vagina and hemorrhage in her uterus. Death was attributed to disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (a clotting disorder) due to abortion-induced amniotic fluid embolism (amniotic fluid in the bloodstream). Patricia's parents sued Allred and Orleans for their daughter's death.

Other women known to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include Denise Holmes, Mary Pena, Josefina Garcia, Laniece Dorsey, Joyce Ortenzio, Tami Suematsu, Susan Levy, Deanna Bell, Christine Mora, Ta Tanisha Wesson, Nakia Jorden, Maria Leho, Kimberly Neil, Maria Rodriguez, and Chanelle Bryant.