Beatrice's Fatal Journey to Dr. Hart

SUMMARY: Beatrice Fisher, age 36, died on March 6, 1945 after an abortion perpetrated by Dr. Frank Hart in his Seattle, WA practice.

Beatrice Fern Fisher, age 36, operated a gas station and grocery store with her husband, Lyle, in Snohomish county, about seventeen miles north of Seattle. The couple had three children, aged 14, 13, and 4. Around 1937, Beatrice had successfully sought an abortion, performed by the same Seattle doctor who had delivered her oldest child. Around March 4 of 1945, Beatrice informed her husband that she was pregnant, and that she intended to return to Seattle for an abortion to be performed by the woman who'd done the first abortion. Her husband wasn't happy with the plan, but left the matter to his wife.

On March 5, Beatrice took her four-year-old daughter and $100 in cash and drove to Seattle to seek her former physician. On the way to Seattle, Beatrice stopped at the home of her mother-in-law, Ethel Howard. Mrs. Howard was a practical nurse. While at her mother-in-law's house, Beatrice called a "Dr. T" and spoke to him about having an abortion done. This was the first Mrs. Howard learned of the pregnancy.

At some point that morning, Beatrice called her husband and said that she'd not been able to talk to her doctor, but that the nurse at the doctor's office had referred her to "Dr. T" in Seattle.

Beatrice, her mother-in-law, and the little girl went to Seattle, to Dr. T's office. They arrived at around noon. Dr. T was not available, but his nurse gave Beatrice a business card from Dr. T. On the back, she wrote the name of Dr. Frank C. Hart, along with the address of his office in the Joshua Green building in Seattle.

Beatrice and her companions went to Hart's office, where they found a waiting room full of women but no nurse. Later, Hard came into the waiting room and announced, "Five of you women that came in just now leave and those that were here yesterday remain." Mrs. Howard left with the little girl, but Beatrice stayed.

On the drive home, at about 5:00, Beatrice stopped at her mother-in-law's home. She said she had a severe headache. She was perspiring heavily. Mrs. Howard, following Dr. Hart's instructions, gave her daughter-in-law black tea and put a hot water bottle under her back. That was when she noticed that Beatrice's genitals were bandaged.

Beatrice stayed in bed for about 45 minutes, then got up for dinner with her in-laws. She left for home at about 8:30, stopping at the gas station to pick up her husband.

The following morning, Beatrice told her husband that she was returning to Dr. Hart to have "blood clots" removed. She looked tired. She took her daughter with her again, stopping again at her mother-in-law's house. The three went into Seattle, ate lunch, then went to Hart's office. During the trip, Beatrice reported chest and arm pain, and her face was flushed deep red.

At Hart's office, the women again found a waiting room full of women, but no nurse. Again, Hart made the announcement that those who were there for the first time were to leave, and the rest were to remain. He told Beatrice to proceed into the office. Mrs. Howard told Hart that she was very concerned about Beatrice. Fisher told her, "This is no place for relations and children. Meet her downstairs in the lobby."

Expecting her daughter-in-law to be ready to leave in about 20 minutes, Mrs. Howard went to do some shopping. On returning to the building, she found a crowd of people gathered in the lobby near the flower shop. Mrs. Howard approached the group and found Beatrice lying dead.

The autopsy determined that Beatrice had been about two months pregnant. There were clear signs that somebody had performed a curettage. The uterine wall had been gouged in several places. Clots had formed over these gouges. The coroner concluded that one of these clots had formed an embolism that had lodged in Beatrice's lung, causing her death.

On March 7, Hart was arrested. He showed authorities through his premises and gave instruments into evidence, including sponge-forceps and irrigating curettes. When questioned, Hart said that he kept no patient records and didn't give receipts.

Hart was convicted of abortion and manslaughter in Beatrice's death.

Beatrice's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.

During the 1940s, while abortion was still illegal, there was a massive drop in maternal mortality from abortion. The death toll fell from 1,407 in 1940, to 744 in 1945, to 263 in 1950. Most researches attribute this plunge to the development of blood transfusion techniques and the introduction of antibiotics. Learn more here.

A March 6 Litany of Death

Filthy in Florida, 1985

Ellen Williams, age 38, died March 6, 1985 after an abortion performed by Chartoor Singh at Dadeland in Miami, FL. Her death illustrates so much of what's wrong with the abortion lobby that I'm addressing it separately.

Lingering Death After Safe, Legal California Abortion, 1969 into 1970

A 16-year-old girl underwent a safe and legal second-trimester saline abortion on August 26, 1969. At that time, California allowed abortions as long as they were performed by doctors in hospitals. A journal article on her death identifies her as "F.S." I'll call her "Felicia." Felicia developed an infection and symptoms of meningitis after her abortion. She continued to be treated for ten days before she was transferred to another hospital in San Francisco for further treatment. Doctors performed two heart valve replacements on Felicia, and had scheduled her for yet another before she died on March 6, 1970. The cause of death was severe congestive heart failure and pneumonia.

Abortion-Rights Group Cites Sources for 1967 Seattle Death

The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project -- unlike most abortion-rights publications -- actually cites specific sources for their stories of illegal abortion deaths. For the March 6, 1967 death of Elizabeth Staley, they cite the Daily Olympian (March 8 & 9 and May 3 & 4, 1967) and the Seattle Times (May 5 & 6 and July 18, 1967). They also include a clipping from the March 8 Daily Olympian, "Manslaughter, Abortion Charges Filed Here In Young Wife's Death." The clipping notes that the investigation into Elizabeth's death had begun on March 6, a Monday, when Ronald showed up at St. Peter Hospital with his wife's lifeless body. County Coroner Hollis Fultz began in investigation beginning with an autopsy, showing that Elizabeth, who had been about four months pregnant, had suffered an air embolism (air in her blood stream) during the abortion. I've been unable to determine if the woman charged in Elizabeth's death was the abortionist or only an accomplice.

A Seattle Doctor in 1945

Beatrice Fisher, age 36, died on March 6, 1945 after an abortion perpetrated by Dr. Frank Hart in his Seattle, WA practice. Given the abundance of information on Beatrice's death, I'm devoting another post to her story.

The First of Two Deaths Attributed to Chicago Midwife, 1928

A typical Chicago abortion death in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was perpetrated by a physician or midwife at the practitioner's office. The woman would take ill and her family would bring her to a hospital, where she would die after naming the guilty party. Such was the abortion that killed 24-year-old Lucille Smith on March 6, 1928. Lucille, a store clerk and homemaker, died at Chicago's Burrows Hospital from complications of an abortion performed that day at the office of 68-year-old midwife Emma Schulz. Schulz was indicted for felony murder on April 1, 1929. The following year, Schulz was arrested after the death of 23-year-old Gladys Schaffer.

Second of Three Deaths Attibuted to Lima, OH Doc, 1921

The March 21, 1921 Lima (Ohio) News notes that Dr. Charles W. Milliken was charged with performing a fatal abortion on Florence Cobb. Ohio records indicate that Florence died on March 6 and was about 23 years old. It turned out to have been quite a month for Milliken -- or, more to the point, for his patients. Iva Triplett had died under his care on March 9. Milliken was held on $10,000 bail in each case, Iva's and Florence's. An earlier patient, 19-year-old Francis Karies, had died in Chicago in 1920 after undergoing an abortion at Milliken's Ohio practice.

An Unidentified Perp in Chicago, 1915

Bessie Wallace, a 35-year-old homemaker and Russian immigrant, died on March 8, 1915 after an abortion perpetrated in Chicago by an unidentified person.

Deathbed Implication Fails to Produce Indictment, 1896

On February 29, 1896, Dr. Jacoby was summoned to the Brooklyn home of Mrs. Lena Schott, variously identified as a midwife and as a "doctress" in news coverage of what was to follow. Jacoby had been asked to attend to Mary Gibson, a 22-year-old domestic servant. Concluding that Mary was suffering the effects of a botched abortion, Jacoby didn't want to deal with the case himself and instead had Mary taken to Bellevue hospital.

Once she was there, Mary gave a statement saying that Schott had indeed perpetrated an abortion on her. Since Mary was expected to die soon, Schott was arrested and held until Mary's fate played out. On March 6, 1896, Mary Gibson died.

During the inquest into Mary's death, things got heated between Schott's attorney, William Howe, and Coroner Hoeber, with the two of them bickering, Hoebner leaving the room, Howe pursuing him, and somebody having to bring the Assistant District Attorney in to referee.

Finally a police detective was able to testify that they had found Mary at Schott's house prior to her transfer to Bellevue.

Almost immediately afterward, Howe and Hoebner resumed their bickering, with Howe complaining about Hoebner's "confounded eccentricities" and Hoebner accusing Howe of owing "everybody" money. Howe countered that Hoebner owed the clerk $300. It looked as if the two were going to come to blows before the ADA managed to call things to order. The coroner's jury eventually decided to rule that Mary had died "from causes unknown," and Mrs Schott was released.

March 5: Safe and Legal in Philly, Illegal in Chicago

Safe and Legal in Philly, 1980

Gwendolyn Cliett, age 29, was about to undergo a safe, legal abortion and tubal ligation at Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia on March 5, 1980. She was 8 to 10 weeks pregnant. Before the procedure could be done, Gwendolen reacted to the anesthesia and died. Gwendolyn, being a Black woman, was at higher risk of abortion death than a white woman would have been.

A Mysterious Chicago Death, 1915

Lillian Galvin died March 6, 1915 in Chicago. Authorities were unable to determine who had perpetrated the fatal abortion. I have been unable to learn anything else about Lillian. I have not even been able to find her name in Chicago or Cook County death indices.

A Chicago Midwife, 1907

On March 5, 1907, Mrs. Ella Brunswick, age 24, died at St. Elizabeth's hospital in Chicago from complications of a criminal abortion performed that day. In a deathbed statement, Ella implicated a 35-year-old midwife named Kunigundi Hardman.

Ella's abortion was typical of Chicago abortions of the era in that it was perpetrated by a medical professional. Physician-abortionists and midwife-abortionists were very common.

Known Perp, Unknown Profession, in Chicago, 1900

On March 5, 1900, Mrs. Alice Koester died in German Hospital from complications of an illegal abortion that the Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database indicates was performed there that day by Maria Janke. The database is often in error about abortions being perpetrated in hospitals. Alice's fatal abortion was more likely performed either at her own home or at wherever Janke typically piled her abortion trade. Janke was arrested March 10, and held by Coroner's Jury on March 11. She was sentenced by Judge Clifford to Joliet Penitentiary for a charge not noted in the source. Janke's employment status is listed as "professional", but so far I have been unable to determine her usual profession. Most Chicago abortionists were doctors or midwives, but since I have not found a professional listing for her, she was more likely a professional lay abortionist.

Semika Shaw: Victim of Politics

Semika Shaw

Today we observe what happens when, like pro-choice politicians are wont to do, you place your confidence in abortion providers and assume that they're above reproach.

In March of 2000, Semika Shirelle Shaw underwent an abortion at Kermit Gosnell's Philadelphia office. Semika, a 22-year-old mother of two, called Gosnell's office the next day to report heavy bleeding, but according to court documents she was not instructed to seek care. Two days later, she collapsed while at home with her cousins, screaming and writhing on the floor. Her mother came  home and had Semika taken to the hospital, where she died of sepsis and a perforated uterus.

Here is the segment of the Grand Jury Report concerning Semika's death:

On October 9, 2002, the Professional Underwriters Liability Insurance Company reported to theState Board of Medicine that it had paid a $400,000 settlement to the family of Semika Shaw, the 22- year-old mother of two who died following an abortion procedure at Gosnell’s clinic in March 2000. (In January 2003, the Pennsylvania Medical Professional Liability Catastrophe Loss Fund reported to the Department of State that it had paid an additional $500,000 toward a $900,000 award to the family.) The October 9 report is logged in as “received” by theDepartment of State’s “Complaints Office” on December 6, 2002. The file turned over to the Grand Jury shows no further activity until over a year later – January 2, 2004 – when a one-page printout of Gosnell’s license information is stamped “received” by the complaints office.

The next action recorded in the file is a one-paragraph “Prosecution Evaluation,” dated April 29, 2004, in which Mark Greenwald, a prosecuting attorney for the Board of Medicine purportedly summarizes the case and concludes: “Prosecution not Warranted.” Here is the paragraph:

• Brief Factual Summary: The file was opened as a result of a Medical Malpractice Payment Report. The underlying malpractice case involved the death of a 22 year old female following the termination of her 5th pregnancy. Following a seemingly routine procedure on 3/1/02, the patient was taken to the ER at the University of Pennsylvania with complaints of pain and heavy bleeding. The patient underwent surgery but the surgeon was unable to locate any perforation and the patient died from infection and sepsis. Although the incident is tragic, especially in light of the age of the patient, the risk was inherent with the procedure performed by Respondent [Gosnell] and administrative action against respondent’s license is not warranted.
• 
  
• 
  
• RECOMMENDATION: Z-02, Prosecution not Warranted

Kermit Gosnell

In fact, all the information in this single paragraph is taken entirely – including incorrect dates – from the insurance company’s original paragraph-long report sent to the Board in October 2002. And yet, while Greenwald included the irrelevant, but pointed, assertion that this was the patient’s fifth pregnancy that was being terminated (note: the report said that this was the patient's fifth pregnancy, not her 5th abortion -- ed), the Department of State prosecutor omitted from his summary the most important information that the insurance company had provided: “Autopsy report indicated perforation of cervix into uterus. Heirs alleged our insured improperly performed the termination procedure and failed to diagnose post-op uterine perforation resulting in sepsis and death.”

Greenwald’s supervisor, Charles J. Hartwell, the Senior Prosecutor-in-Charge at the Department of State’s Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs, purportedly reviewed Greenwald’s “evaluation” and approved it on May 14, 2004. Hartwell did so, ostensibly, knowing nothing beyond the bare facts that Semika Shaw died from infection and sepsis two days after Gosnell perforated her uterus and cervix during an abortion procedure. (Greenwald also omitted from his evaluation that the insurance carrier had settled the case for $900,000, the majority of which had to be disbursed by a Pennsylvania catastrophic expense fund.)

....

Before Department of State prosecutors decided not to investigate the 22-year-old patient’s death, they had been told of Gosnell’s many illegal practices. What makes these prosecutors’ inaction even more astonishing is that they did know more than the bare facts included in the Board attorney’s evaluation of the case. On the same day in 2004 that they decided not to do anything about Semika Shaw’s death, these same two prosecutors also closed the investigation into the complaint brought to the Department of State more than two years earlier by Marcella Stanley Choung. That was the complaint that had alerted the Board of Medicine – eight years before Karnamaya Mongardied – to almost all of the same violations revealed by this Grand Jury’s investigation.

Semika's cousin, Pennsylvania Representative Margo Davidson, favored laws to enforce standards for the state's abortion practices. She told reporters about Semika's young children sobbing and not being able to understand why their mother wouldn't get up. ("Legislator explains her backing of abortion crackdown,"
Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, PA), Dec. 16, 2011)

Semika's cousin tells her story:

March 3 Patricia Chacon: One of Sixteen FPA Deaths

The National Abortion Federation, an organization of abortion practitioners and their for-profit and non-profit abortion facilities, is highly reputable in abortion-rights circles. Sixteen-year-old Patricia Chacon lost her life after placing her trust in one of those NAF members. 

Patricia had no way of knowing, as she climbed onto the abortion table at Avalon Hospital, that 24-year-old Denise Holmes had died at Avalon in December of 1970. She also had no way of knowing that she would become the second of more than a dozen women for whom a safe, legal abortion at Family Planning Associates would be the last choice she would ever make.

Patricia, 24 weeks pregnant, underwent a safe and legal abortion at the hands of either Edward Allred or Leslie Orleans at Allred's Avalon Hospital in Los Angeles on the morning of March 3, 1984. The abortion took five hours to complete.

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 their 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. Since one of the things DIC causes is massive hemorrhage, Patricia's parents are probably correct in blaming her death on blood loss.

Edward Campbell Allred

Avalon Hospital was part of Edward Allred's Family Planning Associates Medical Group, a National Abortion Federation member facility.

Other women known to have died after abortion at the chain of facilities founded by Allred include:

• Denise Holmes, age 24, 1970
• Mary Pena, age 43, 1984
• Josefina Garcia, age 37, 1985
• Laniece Dorsey, age 17, 1986
• Joyce Ortenzio, age 32, 1988
• Tami Suematsu, age 19, 1988
• Susan Levy, age 30, 1992
• Deanna Bell, age 13, 1992
• Christine Mora, age 18, 1994
• Ta Tanisha Wesson, age 24, 1995
• Nakia Jorden, 1998
• Maria Leho, 1999
• Kimberly Neil, 2000
• Maria Rodriguez, age 22, 2000
• Chanelle Bryant, age 22, 2004

A Physician, Self-Induced, and Unnamed

A Chicago Physician, 1916

On February 29, 1916, Dr. Nels Meling was summoned to the home of 43-year-old homemaker Augusta Bloom 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, 43-year-old 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.

Self-Induced in Pittsburgh, 1918

Nikola Wojnovich of Pittsburgh said that on Saturday, February 16, 1918, his 26-year-old wife, Mary, seemed unwell after dinner, very unstable on her feet. He helped her to bed 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.

Chicago, 1928, Dying Woman Shields Abortionist

Vivian Willis, a 21-year-old clerk, died at Chicago's Lakeside Hospital on March 3, 1928 from an infection doctors attributed to a criminal abortion. Vivian refused to name an abortionist.

More Deaths that I Stumbled Across

As I was looking for a picture of Kermit Gosnell's victim Semika Shaw for this year's blog post on her death, I stumbled across a page in which Operation Rescue summarizes their recent archives on women's abortion deaths. I discovered two womens abortion deaths that I'd not known about. (NB: Operation Rescue is a rock-solid source for information about abortion malpractice and deaths. They dig deep to get as many original source documents and possible, including 911 tapes and transcripts, ambulance dispatch sheets, police reports, death certificate, autopsy reports, etc.)

Since I lost my wiki capability last year I can't easily add these women to the Cemetery of Choice, but I still want to fit them in with the women whose tragic deaths I'd already learned about. I've highlighted the two deaths I had previously not known about.

2010 

• Alexandra Nunez * January 25, 2010 Age: 37 * Abortionist: Dr. Robert Hosty, A1 Medicine
• 9 additional women noted by the Centers for Disease Control 

2011 

• 2 women noted by the Centers for Disease Control

2012 

• Tonya Reeves * July 21, 2012 Age: 24 * Abortionist: Dr. Mandy Gittler, Planned Parenthood
• "Shirelle" H. * September 22, 2012 * Abortionist: Dr. Frank Rodriguez, Presidential Womens Center
• 2 additional women noted by the Centers for Disease Control

2013

• Jennifer McKenna-Morbelli * February 7, 2013 Age: 29 * Abortionist: Dr. LeRoy Carhart, Germantown Reproductive Health Services
• Maria Santiago * Died: February 15, 2013 Age: 38  * Abortionist: Iris Dominy Associates in OB/GYN Care Baltimore, MD
• 2 additional women noted by the Centers for Disease Control

2014

• Lakisha Wilson * March 28, 2014 Age: 22 * Abortionist: Preterm Clinic
• 5 additional women noted by the Centers for Disease Control

2015

• Christi Stile * March 29, 2015, age: 39 * Abortionist: Dr. Ronald Kuseski, Mayfair Women's Clinic

2016

• Diamond Williams * January 27, 2016, age 18 * Abortionist: Carolina Center for Women
• Cree Erwin-Sheppard * July 3, 2016 Age: 24 * Planned Parenthood, Kalamazoo, MI
• Jamie Lee Morales * July 9, 2016 Age: 30 * Abortionist: Dr. Robert Rho, Liberty Women's HealthNew York, NY

2017

• Keisha Marie Atkins * February 4, 2017 Age: 23 * Abortionist: Dr. Curtis Boyd, Southwest Women's Options, Albuquerque, NM

A Secret Legal Abortion and Three Criminal Deaths

A Secret Abortion in 1989

Sixteen-year-old Erica Richardson was brought to Dr. Gene Crawford by her aunt on March 1, 1989 for a safe, legal abortion. Erica's aunt, who had taken the girl for an abortion behind her mother's back, reported that Crawford left the girl unattended for four hours after her abortion, then at 11PM carried her to the car and instructed her aunt to take her home. Erica's aunt, a nurse, instead took the girl to a hospital. Erica died of an embolism (foreign matter or air in the bloodstream) shortly after midnight on March 2. 

An Unknown Chicago Perp in 1914

On March 2, 1914, 32-year-old Hannah Olson, a homemaker, died in Chicago, on the scene of an abortion performed that day by an unknown perpetrator.

A Chicago Midwife, 1908

"Ruby," identified as "Mrs. C." in the source document, was 24 years old when she had an abortion performed by a Chicago midwife on February 15, 1908. She began bleeding severely after the abortion. Four days later, Ruby was suffering from fever, chills, and abdominal pain. On the sixth day, a physician came to her home and performed a curettage, but her condition only continued to deteriorate. Ruby was admitted to Cook County Hospital on February 28. Her pulse was 136, her respirations 26, her fever 103.6. Her abdomen was distended and tender. She was vomiting, extremely weak, incontinent, and unable to sleep. She was evidently suffering from general peritonitis. "Death occurred on March 2, after several hours of wild delirium." Sources: "A Study Of and Deductions From Fifty Fatal Cases of Puerperal Fever," Dr. Herbert Marion Stowe, Surgery Gynecology and Obstetrics, 1912, Part 1 and Part 2

Another Chicago Midwife, 1906

Otilia Mary Winkler, age 23, was an unusual woman in 1906 Chicago. Unmarried, she worked as an electrician. At some point in early 1906, Otilia made a connection with one of Chicago's many midwife-abortionists, Wilhelmina Benn. This licensed midwife had been born in Germany around 1847, making her around 60 years old at the time. She had immigrated to the United States around 1886. Benn was charged in Otilia's death, but was never prosecuted. Benn was later charged in the June, 1916 abortion death of Rosie Kawera and the December 31, 1917 abortion death of 40-year-old homemaker Victoria Chmileuski.

Dr. Hagenow's 1906 Victim

On March 2, 1906, 28-year-old Lola Maddison of Salt Lake City, Utah, died from an abortion at in Chicago. She went to Chicago on the advice of a friend and made straight for Lucy Hagenow's practice, where she remained for several days. Somehow her sister, Kathryn, who was a nurse in Chicago, learned where Lola was. On February 20 she went to check on her. She found Lola seriously ill, and had her brought to her home on Cass Street before notifying the police. The police, upon seeing Lola's grave condition, had her brought immediately to Passavant Hospital.

The coroner, facing ongoing stonewalling in his investigation into the abortion death of Mercedes Berriozabal, worked hard to get as much information as possible from Lola before her lips were sealed by death. She made a deathbed statement detailing the events leading to her demise, though she adamantly refused to divulge the name of the baby's father, who she said had provided her with $100 to cover travel expenses and the cost of the abortion.

Police Sargent George W. Pearsall took Hagenow to Lola's room at Passavant Hospital about five o'clock on the afternoon of February 20. He asked Lola, "Do you know this woman?" To which Lola replied, "Oh, yes, that is the doctor." The police captain asked for clarification and Lola identified Hagenow as the doctor who had performed the abortion at her office on Clark Street. 

Abortionist Lucy "Louise" Hagenow

Hagenow was well known to Chicago police. She had been implicated the death of Minnie Deering in 1891 and Sophia Kuhn in 1892. Later that same year she was implicated in the abortion death of Emily Anderson.

Her first Cook County trial was in 1895, when Mary Putnam had died under her care. Hagenow was acquitted in the case and promptly went on to be implicated in the July, 1896 abortion death of Hannah Carlson. Though Hannah's brother identified Hagenow as the abortionist, the jury was unable to dismiss Hagenow's claims that she had only been caring for Hannah after a self-induced abortion, and she was again acquitted.

The August, 1899 abortion death of Marie Hecht brought a change in Hagenow's fortunes. Marie's deathbed statement, and corroborating testimony by one of Marie's friends, secured a conviction. In February of 1900, Hagenow was sent to Joliet Penitentiary to serve a sentence of one year to life. She served only the one year then was released and seemed to have kept herself out of trouble until Lola's death. She was arrested and held by the coroner's jury March 3. Emma L. Anderson, identified as Hagenow's niece, was unable to get the charges dismisses, but was able to argue in favor of her aunt's release on $10,000 bail. Because of technical issues with the indictment, the case was dropped on July 22, 1907. This left Hagenow, who had already been implicated of the abortion deaths of Louise Derchow, Annie Dorris, Abbia Richards, and Emma Dep in San Francisco, to perform a fatal abortion on Annie Horvatich in 1907. Annie's death finally won Hagenow a trip to Joliet. She was freed on October 29, 1917, having served less than half of her sentence. Over the next few years she botched a few abortions and got herself arrested, but all of the women survived. 

Then, suddenly in 1925, it was as if something snapped and Hagenow began making up for lost time. Five young women lost their lives at Lucy Hagenow's hands that year: Lottie Lowy, Nina H. Pierce, Jean Cohen, Bridget Masterson, and Elizabeth Welter. Hagenow followed up in 1926 with her final patient death: Mary Moorehead. That makes a total of 17 abortion deaths I could positively identify for which Hagenow was implicated in some way. She served about a year for the death of Marie Hecht, and was incarcerated for the death of Annie Horvatich until 1917. Though she was sentenced to prison for the death of Mary Moorehead, when she appealed the Supreme Court of Illinois ordered a new trial in 1929. The judge, noting that there was no new evidence, dismissed the case, telling Hagenow, "You had better make your peace with God, Lucy Hagenow. I do not think your months on earth are many."

Hagenow, the Associated Press noted, was nearly deaf and "may not have heard. She muttered something, and shambled laboriously from the room."

As near as I can determine, Hagenow died September 26, 1933, in Norwood Park, Cook County, Illinois. 

A Texas Teen's Unconscionable Suffering

Of all the justifications for the current state of abortion in the United States, this is the one that probably steams me the most, personally is the argument that abortion has to be legal to prevent gruesome back-aley deaths. I've reviewed about 6,000 abortion injury and death cases. I've gone through boxes of nothing but autopsy reports on young women and girls dead for no good reason. The idea that it's okay to kill some women legally in order to prevent other women from being killed illegally gets to me.

We can start with Jammie Garcia.

When the documents for Lime 5 were pouring in, I was an abstracting machine. I had a three to four foot stack of documents in my office on any given day that I had to plow through, skim, highlight, read, summarize. I learned to be very detached and clinical, to just get the words and ideas and not let it get to me. But Jammie Garcia got to me.

The first document I reviewed was a March 1994 report on an inspection done in response to a patient death in a clinic owned by Dr. Moshe Hachamovitch. The report said that the staff were inadequately trained in how to properly sterilize instruments. The administrator was evidently aware of the fact that the autoclave used to sterilize instruments was not functioning properly. As for the instruments themselves, "two loop forceps, two tenaculums and one curette were found to have small particles of dried brownish-dark red material on them. Three speculums were found to have small particles of dried clear material on them." "The only sterilized abortion tray in the procedure room was found to contain a curette with a loop whose edge was visibly jagged instead of smooth." 

Untrained staff? Dirty instruments? Indifferent administration? That's not enough to even get my attention. I'd read one report in which the inspectors asked the staff to demonstrate that the emergency generator was functioning properly. The generator caught fire. I'd seen reports of dogs in clinics, bloody bare mattresses, drunken abortionists falling on the floor. So Moshe Hachamovitch's little abortion mill didn't stand out for its flaws.

Then there was the case of the patient whose death had brought on the inspection. She was identified as 15-year-old "J.G." "J.G." had her abortion performed by John Coleman at Hachamovitch's A to Z abortion facility on February 18, 1994. Four days later, on February 23, she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of a Houston hospital, with spiking fever, chills, nausea, pain, respiratory distress, a distended abdomen, low blood oxygen levels, and foul-smelling discharge. An examination revealed inflammation and a tear in her cervix.

This was all tragic, very sad, but again, typical for what I'd see in an abortion death. I dutifully wrote up the case while Mona tried to get more information. She got a copy of the autopsy report.

When I hear about how we need legal abortion to prevent those horrible back-alley abortions, I can see Mona and me sitting and reading that autopsy report. Mona came across the hall with Jammie's autopsy report in one hand, and another autopsy report in another. She wanted me to really grasp how swollen and boggy Jammie's organs were. Jammie's liver and lungs weighed twice what they should have weighed.

Then Mona and I sat down together and read the rest of the autopsy report. By the time we were done, we were both crying, telling each other, "She was unconscious by then. She had to have been unconscious."

Jammie's body was wracked with abscesses, spreading infection that had entered her body through the damage the abortion had done to her uterus. Her brain was swollen. As near as Mona and I could figure, Jammie's fetid fluids had made their way up through her damaged bowels and into her lungs.

Nobody can convince me that Jammie's death was an improvement on the old back-alley abortions. No drunken, trenchcoat-clad pervert with a rusty coathanger could have done more damage, could have killed her any more horribly.

I will never understand the stubborn instance that when a pregnant woman faces challenges, somebody has to die. Why? Why, with so many adoptive homes for her child, did Jammie have to die? Why, with so many prolife pregnancy centers standing by to help her, did Jammie have to die?

Abortion laws didn't kill Jammie Garcia. An abortionist did. Does the fact that he did it in a legally operating "clinic," with medical instruments instead of with a coathanger, make her any less dead?

Women -- and little girls like Jammie Garcia -- will continue to die, as long as they continue to perceive abortion as an escape. And they will continue to perceive it as an escape as long as there is a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign shouting from the rooftops the wonders and benefits of safe-n-legal abortion.

NOTE:
Five other patients are known to have died either under Hachamovitch's direct care or under the care of an employe at one of his clinics.

Tanya Williamson
This young woman was inadequately monitored in recovery and allowed to lapse into respiratory arrest. She died on in September of 1996

Luz Rodriguez
Allowed to bleed to death in 1986 under Hachamovitch's direct care in the Bronx.

Christina Goesswein
Hachamovitch brought her to his office at 4 a.m. to treat grave complications.She died in October of 1990.

Lisa Bardsley
Bled to death on the way home from her safe, legal abortion at one of Hachamovitch's facilities in Arizona in 1995. 

Lou Anne Herron
Her pleas for help went unheeded as she bled to death in Hachamovitch's Arizona abortion clinic in 1998.

Unknown Perps, a Doctor, and a Dentist

An Unknown Chicago Perp, 1914

Della Augustine, a 24-year-old homemaker from Poland, made a connection with one of Chicago's many abortionists in early 1914. Most Chicago abortionists of the time were physicians or midwives, but the authorities were unable to determine who had perpetrated Della's. She died on March 1.

A Doctor and a Dentist in Georgia, 1919

Viola Parr, age 24, of Athens, Georgia, worked at the dental office of Dr. M. T. Summerlin. On or about February 22, 1919, an abortion was perpetrated on her in Summerlin's office. Viola's mother said that Viola had “declared that her delicate condition was caused by illegal relations with Dr. Summerlin, followed by the malpractice of Dr. W. G. Waters, an osteopath.” Both men, “prominent and influential professional men of Athens” were charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, and assault with intent to murder in Viola's death.

Summerlin and Waters fled the city when they learned that Viola had accused them in her deathbed statement, though they later turned themselves in, protesting their innocence. Summerlin reportedly got her pregnant, Walters did the abortion at his behest. Viola's family hired additional attorneys to assist the prosecution. Evidence did indicate that Summerlin was responsible for Viola's pregnancy and that both had participated in the abortion, performed with instruments of some sort. Both men were convicted and sentenced to three year prison terms.

An Unknown Perp in Chicago, 1919

On March 1, 1919, 22-year-old Jeanette Ruff died in her Chicago home from an abortion performed by an unknown perpetrator.

A Chicago Doctor's Case Stricken Off in 1920

Dr. Klinck

In early 1920, Christina Hetland, 39 years old and divorced, was admitted to Chicago's Swedish Covenant Hospital, suffering in infection caused by an abortion perpetrated somewhere in the city. Most of Chicago's abortionists were either physicians or midwives. Dr. John M. Klinck was identified by authorities as the perpetrator of Christina's abortion. Christina, who had come to the US from Norway and who after her divorce had found work as a maid in a Chicago home, died on March 1. Dr. Klinck and a man named Carl Blomgren were held by the coroner but, for reasons I have not been able to determine, both cases were stricken off.