Fatal Teen Abortions and Other Cases

High Risk Abortion in a Low-Risk Setting, 1992

DaNette Pergusson, a 19-year-old medical assistant, submitted to a safe, legal abortion on February 11, 1992, at the hands of Robert Tarnis of Phoenix, Arizona.

Danette had a rare condition called Pyruvate Kinase Deficiency , a hereditary blood disorder that made her a very high-risk patient for an abortion. Dr. Thomas Murphy Goodwin, a high-risk OB/GYN, pointed out in later court proceedings that any abortion on a woman with PKD should have been done in a hospital, and special steps should have been taken to prevent possible fatal clots from forming in DaNette's blood stream.

During the abortion, DaNette stopped breathing, and paramedics were summoned.

The Maricopa County deputy medical examiner determined that DaNette died from a pulmonary embolism, which is when blood flow in the lungs is blocked by material such as a clot.


A Teen's Secret Abortion, 1985

It's the call every parent dreads. Ruth was no exception. Her 13-year-old daughter, Dawn, was active in the church where both her parents were ministers. The family sang Gospel songs together. Dawn was a dream child -- the kid who did her homework without being told, who liked to surprise her mother by cleaning the house. She was what's known in the vernacular as "a good girl." Her parents never expected any trouble about Dawn.

What Ruth didn't know was that Dawn had slipped off her pedestal, had engaged in a dalliance with a 15-year-old Romeo. And when she learned that she was pregnant, she knew her parents would be crushed. She went to a teacher for advice. The teacher and a counselor arranged to take care of the whole mess so that Dawn's parents would never have to know. The boyfriend borrowed a credit card from a relative to pay for the risky, expensive, second-trimester abortion.

The counselor at Eastern Women's Center (a National Abortion Federation member) had seen how frightened Dawn was, and had marked on her chart that she should be treated with "tender loving care." But abortionist Alan Kline had his own ideas about what constituted "tender loving care." According to the suit filed by Dawn's parents, anesthetist Robert Augente didn't administer enough anesthesia to get the frightened child through the entire procedure. About halfway through, she began to cough, vomit, and choke. Abortionist Kline put a breathing tube in Dawn's throat, put her aside, and left her unattended to lapse into a coma. Dawn was eventually rushed to the hospital, where it finally occurred to somebody to do the obvious: call Dawn's mother.

"They told me I had to get down to St. Luke's right away, that Dawn was at that hospital fighting for her life," Ruth Ravenell later said. "I was going, 'How can she be fighting for her life? She left for school this morning, looking healthy, never been sick.' While I was there at the hospital -- they were doing tests -- I had to keep my hand pressed over my mouth to keep from screaming in horror. I kept going, 'This is all a bad dream. I am going to wake up and this will not have happened.'"

Day after day Dawn's family gathered at her bedside, talking to her, playing tapes of the family singing together, trying to lure her back from the brink of death -- all to no avail. Dawn died three weeks after her abortion, on February 11, 1985, without ever having regained consciousness.

The family sued and won, but as the New York Post headline pointed out, "$1.2M Won't Bring Her Back." The story featured a photo of Dawn at her junior high graduation, in cap and gown, gazing out smiling at a future she would never have.


No Justice for Eva, 1916

On February 11, 1916, 42-year-old Eva Krakonowicz died in her Chicago home from an abortion perpetrated that day by midwife Agnes Dzugas. Dzugas was held by the coroner and indicted by a Grand Jury on February 1, but the case never went to trial.


An Abortion and a Suicide, 1905

On February 11, 1905, 17-year-old Leona Loveless died in the Ischua, New York home of Dayton M. Hibner, where she had been working as a domestic for two years. She had gotten the job with the assistance of her grandmother, but over the objections of her widowed father, Abram.

Leona reportedly had been in good health until about 5:15 p.m., when she was found in her room in great pain. She died about fifteen minutes later, and the coroner was notified and an autopsy conducted in anticipation of an inquest. Hibner quipped to the coroner that he was going to blow his brains out and end the matter.

Whether because of this comment or because of other suspicious happenings or rumors, law enforcement sent a guard home with Hibner to stay with him pending the completion of the coroner's inquest.

Saying he was going to feed his horses, Hibner left the guard at his house and went into the barn and got out a double-barreled shotgun. His first shot, to the chest, took a downward trajectory that wasn't fatal. He finished himself off with a second blast that took off the top of his head.

Hibner's 52-year-old wife was left devastated. Dayton Hibner had been her second husband. Her first husband, Mr. Beebe, had died by hanging himself.

"The coroner made discoveries after the girl's death, which, if proved, would have made the lynching of the suicide among the possibilities had he not taken his own life," the Lake Shore News noted.

Even getting Leona's body to the family home in Wolcott proved difficult. Her grandmother, Mrs. Sherman, and her cousin, Maude Legg, only made the journey from Ischua as far as Niagara Falls before being stopped by winter storms. A relative of Maude's, who had worked for the railroad, managed to arrange a special train for the journey to be completed.


A Shocking Journey, 1879

On February 11, 1879, 65-year-old Henry Sammis of Northport, Long Island, got a dispatch from Inspector Murray of the Brooklyn police to go to Brooklyn immediately. His daughter, 21-year-old Cora Sammis, a Sunday School teacher from Northport, Long Island, was deathly ill.

Mr. Sammis, a coal and lumber dealer, boarded the next train with his wife. About halfway to New York, he got a copy of the morning paper. There he read that his daughter had already died from the results of a botched abortion.

"I was almost paralyzed with horror, and count not believe the story to be true," he told the New York Herald. Fearful of upsetting his wife, Mr. Sammis kept his composure. Pretending to be adjusting the window on the car, he let the newspaper fly.

Once they got to the home of Mr. Sammis's sister, he broke the news to his wife. Leaving her in the care of friends, he went to the police station and was given the address where his daughter had died.

"The old man's eyes were red with weeping" as he left the police station. He was escorted to the upstairs front room where Cora, "clad in a blue merino wrapper, lay on the bed on which she had died."

Cora had been a lovely girl, with "luxuriant dark brown hair." But when her father saw her body, "Her features had become so shrunken and emaciated that he hardly knew her. He stooped and kissed her forehead, and, controlling himself, arose and looked at her for a long time in silence.

The police asked him about Frank Cosgrove. Mr. Sammis said that the family knew him well. He had been courting Cora for about two years, and the couple had become engaged and had planned to marry before the spring. Cosgrove, who worked in the shipping business, had seemed to have honorable intentions, and Cora had seemed to be of a chaste disposition. A resident of Newport said, "She was the last girl in the village that I could have suppose could be tempted."

However, in November of 1878, Cora had gone to Brooklyn to visit her aunt, and Cosgrove spent a lot of time in her company. Her parents believed that it was during this time that the liaison took place which had resulted in Cora's pregnancy.

Cora's body was taken to the coroner's office, where an autopsy was performed "which showed conclusively that death had resulted from malpractice."

Cora's aunt, Mary D. Betts, testified that Cora and her "alleged seducer," Frank Cosgrove, had met at her house and from there went to the home of 35-year-old Bertha Berger.

About two hours after they arrived at the house, Berger perpetrated the abortion. Cora was to convalesce there but instead grew increasingly ill. Cosgrove, who sat up with Cora every night, grew more and more worried. He found an ad for Dr. Whitehead, who advertised that he practiced midwifery, and offered him $100 to take over Cora's care.

Upon examining Cora, Whitehead found that she had a raging fever from a uterine infection. He declared that the case was hopeless. Berger offered him $50 to provide a death certificate but on the advice of his attorney Whitehead refused, instead notifying the authorities.

Police came to Berger's house to question Cora, who was told that she was dying. With frequent rests she was able to give a deathbed statement, occasionally stopping "to lament her unhappy fate." As the detective bent close to hear her, Cora clasped him and asked him to pray for her and to "Spare my Frank." Her primary concern was that no harm would come to her fiancé.

Cora said that she and Frank had rented the room for the express purpose of having Berger perpetrate the abortion. In fact, the Berger house was an abortion house. All but one of the other occupants of the house were arrested along with Berger.


A Wife's Request, 1861

During early 1861, a German physician by the name of John H. Joecken was caring for Mr. Malinken, who was ailing in his Brooklyn home.

On one of his visits, Malinken's 35-year-old wife, Caroline, approached Joecken privately and told him "she did not want to have so many children, and wished to know if it was possible to get rid of her present burthen. The doctor replied that it was the easiest thing imaginable, and that in eight days all would be over."

Joecken set to work on Caroline, "and by the use of drugs as well as instruments succeeded in making her very sick." Over the course of several days her condition deteriorated. She died late Monday night, February 11.

The coroner's jury concluded that Caroline had died from "pyemia, supervening upon metritis, consequent of an abortion produced at the hands of Dr. Joecken." Joecken was arrested.

Early 20th Century Midwives in Chicago

Contrary to popular belief, the abortions before legalization were not typically of the coathanger variety. Most were performed by medical professionals. This was especially the case in Chicago, where midwives and physicians competed for customers.

Today's anniversaries are two of those dad deaths.

On February 9, 1913, 30-year-old milliner Elizabeth Spalding died at Rhodes Avenue Hospital in Chicago of septicemia caused by an abortion perpetrated that day by midwife Caroline Sandberg. Sandberg was tried but acquitted on July 9.

On February 9, 1911, 47-year-old homemaker Elizabeth Martin died at German American Hospital in Chicago from sepsis caused by of an abortion perpetrated at 1310 Eddy Street. Mrs. Schutner, identified as a midwife (which means she might have been an obstetrician) was held by the Coroner's Jury and indicted, but the case never went to trial.

Kermit Gosnell's Last Abortion

Gosnell: The Untold Story of America's Most Prolific Serial Killer, by Ann McElhinney and Philem McAleer, is eye-opening even for folks like me who followed the Gosnell story closely and delved deeply. Nobody has delved more deeply than Ann and Philem. I'm grateful to them.

It's a best-seller on Amazon, and for good reason. There's so much meat here, it's hard to know where to start, so I'll just start with Kermit Gosnell's last hurrah.

Darlene Augustine.and Elinor Barsony, two Department of Health nurses, accompanied the initial raid on Women's Medical Society.

Darlene Augustine had worked at the Department of Health since 1989, supervising inspectors who responded to complaints about health care facilities. She had gotten a fax from Kermit Gosnell on November 24, 2009 notifying the Department of Health about the death of Karnamaya Mongar after her abortion at his Women's Medical Society.

According to the Grand Jury Report, Ms. Augustine had the authority to send someone out to investigate. She often sent someone out within an hour of receiving a report of a serious incident. But since this serious incident involved abortion, she decided that she should run it up the chain of command. She presented the fax to her boss, Cynthia Boyne, to get permission to launch an immediate investigation.

Ms. Boyne supervised the Division of Home Health.  (For some reason only bureaucrats can fathom, the Division of Home Health was in charge of overseeing abortion facilities.) Rather than give the go-ahead, Ms. Boyne discussed the matter with her boss, Janice Staloski, who oversaw the entire Bureau of Community Licensure and Certification.

Boyne and Staloski told Ms. Augustine no. She was not allowed to start an investigation into the death of Karnamaya Mongar.

According to the Grand Jury Report, Ms. Augustine got instructions by senior Department of Health Attorneys Kenneth Brody and James Steele that when she accompanied law enforcement on the raid, she was to to reveal anything about Karnamaya's death. If she were asked about it, she was to refer the questions to the Department's attorneys.

She decided to go even farther. She told the other Department of Health nurse in the group, Elinor Barsony, not to even admit that they knew about Karnamaya's death.

In they went. Ann and Philem note:

Everything was covered in cat hair -- the chairs, blankets, and all the surfaces. The clinic's two surgical procedure rooms were filthy and unsanitary. .... Instruments were not sterile. Equipment was outdated and rusty. Women recovering from their abortions sat on dirty recliners covered with bloodstained blankets that the employees said they 'tried' to clean weekly. Unlicensed employees had sedated all of the women, long before Gosnell arrived. Staff members couldn't say for certain which medications they had administered. Many of the medications that the agents and the detectives found in inventory were well past their expiration dates.

Detective James Wood expressed his shock and disgust to Ms. Augustine, who stunned him by replying, "Well, you're just saying that because you're a cop."

Blood-encrusted and torn procedure room table

As she later testified in Gosnell's trial, Ms. Barsony noticed that the women in recovery weren't hooked up to any of the standard post-surgery monitors for things like blood pressure, pulse, and oxygen saturation. There was only one blood-pressure monitoring cuff on the premises, and it was dusty and dirty and obviously disused. As for the procedure rooms, "They had the trays for the procedure already opened, so they were sitting there exposed ... and they're supposed to be covered." The fact that they were sitting out open, and not being kept sterile prior to starting the abortion, meant that they were unsafe for use. The suction machine was in disrepair and could not allow an accurate measure of how much suction was being applied.

Two of the patients were in such bad shape medically that they needed to be hospitalized. Because the emergency exit was still padlocked and blocked with junk furniture and equipment and the hallways were so narrow and crooked, the paramedics couldn't get stretchers to the patients and had to walk them to the waiting ambulances.

Even after witnessing all of the filth and chaos, nurse Barsony decided to pass one patient's request along to her supervisors. Barsony called Cythia Boyne, who called Janice Staloski, with a question: Should Gosnell be allowed to use his unsterile instruments, expired medications, and dysfunctional suction machine to do one last abortion in his feces-encrusted, urine-spattered, flea-infested clinic?

Boyne and Staloski, the two health officials who had refused to green-light an investigation into a death at Gosnell's filthy facility, were willing to green-light an abortion there.

The Spectrum of Illegal Abortion Deaths

Self-Induced in Pittsburgh, 1919

On February 8, 1919, Ruth Fragale, a 20-year-old clerk, died at her home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her mother and her sister said that Ruth had taken ill on Sunday, February 2, but had insisted that she was not sick enough to need a doctor. Because Ruth had gotten much sicker, her mother sent for Dr. Thomas C. VanHorne on February 4. He was caring for her, with her mother and her sister by her side, when she told him that she'd used instruments on herself to try to cause an abortion on February 1 and 2 after an attempt about two weeks earlier had failed. VanHorne continued to attend to Ruth daily until peritonitis finally killed her, leaving her husband, Frank, widowed. 

Strangely enough, self-induced abortion attempts like Ruth's were far more common in Pittsburgh records than in Chicago, where the majority of fatal abortions were perpetrated by doctors or midwives, as we shall see from the next case.

A Typical Chicago Abortion, 1934

Dr, Lou E. Davis

Dr. Lou E. Davis was tried three times for the February 8, 1934 abortion death of 27-year-old Gertrude Gaesswitz. The first trial resulted in a hung jury, the second in an overturned conviction. Davis was acquitted in the third trial. Davis was implicated in five other Chicago abortion deaths:

• September 9, 1913, 27-year-old Anna Adler
• April 2, 1924, 26-year-old Mary Whitney
• November 4, 1928, 22-year-old Anna Borndal
• December 1, 1928, 23-year-old Esther V. Wahlstrom
• May 19, 1932, 24-year-old Irene Kirschner

An Abortion-Rights Group Cites its Sources

Raisa Trytiak

Unlike most abortion-rights sources, the Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History project cites sources for its assertions and thus wins my admiration.  In the case of  Raisa Trytiak, they cite the Seattle Times (February 8 & 9, 1967, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (February 9 & 10, 1967), and the Everett Herald (May 23, 1967). They even include a clipping from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's February 10, 1967 issue, which noted that Black was held after failing to post $10,000 bail on charges of manslaughter for both Raisa and her unborn child. Raisa was a key punch operator in Seattle First National Bank. For some reason she turned to a neighbor and family friend, 61-year-old Jack Blight, when she wanted to arrange an abortion. Blight was a construction worker. He attempted to abort Raisa's six-month unborn baby, causing a fatal bubble of air in Raisa's blood stream. There were mysterious marks on Raisa's neck indicating strangulation as well, but the news coverage, the web site says, never explained them. Blight entered a guilty plea to manslaughter in Raisa's death and admitted to dumping her body, but for some reason was sentenced only to probation rather than to prison. 

Raisa's decision to turn to a lay abortionist was unusual. Two independent sources -- Nancy Howell Lee and Planned Parenthood -- concluded that prior to legalization, 90% of women found doctors to do their abortions. Lee further found that even when women resorted to non-physicians, they more often than not went to a nurse, midwife, or other person with medical training. More typical of criminal abortions is the one that took the life of 19-year-old Nancy Ward in Kansas City the very same day Raisa Trytiak died.

A Typical Pre-Roe Abortion

Nancy Ward

In November of 1967, Nancy, a student at the University of Oklahoma, told her boyfriend, Fred Landreth, that she was pregnant and wanted an abortion. Fred contacted his father for help. On January 30, 1968, Fred's father contacted osteopath Dr. Richard Mucie at his ear, nose, and throat clinic in Kansas City and made arrangements for the abortion.

On February 7, Nancy and Fred flew from Oklahoma to Kansas City and visited Mucie at his clinic. Mucie examined Nancy while Fred waited, then told the couple that he would contact them at their hotel. The two had dinner and went to a show, then went to the hotel. At 11 p.m., Mucie called and arranged to pick Nancy and Fred up and drive them to his clinic. He took Nancy back for the back room while Fred waited in the outer office. About 20 to 30 minutes later, Mucie, dressed in a surgeon's gown, returned to the front office and asked Fred for money, $400, before starting the procedure. At about 7:30 on the morning of February 8, Mucie came out and asked Fred if he wanted to come back and see Nancy.

Dr. Richard Mucie

Fred went with Mucie into the office and saw Nancy lying on a couch with a cover over her. Fred said, "Hello," to her. She smiled and moved her hand. Mucie told Fred that Nancy was still sedated. Fred went back to the waiting room to nap. He was awakened at about 11:30 that morning by Mucie's porter. Mucie told Fred that Nancy had suffered a heart attack and was in shock and had been taken to the hospital. He told Fred that he would come back for him, then went back into his office. Fred went looking for him and followed the sound of his voice to a back room, where Mucie was lying on a cot, talking on the phone and saying something to the effect of needing to call the coroner and filling out a death certificate.

Stunned, Fred went back to the waiting area. Mucie came out a few minutes later, told him that Nancy had died, and that they needed to stick to the story that the couple had been traveling through Kansas City and had called him because Nancy had started to have chest pains. It was around that time that the ambulance arrived. The driver and attendant found Nancy on a cot. Mucie told them that she still had a pulse, and instructed them to take her to Osteopathic Hospital and administer oxygen en route. The ambulance driver and attendant lifted Nancy and found that she was already stiff. The doctor at the hospital concluded that Nancy been dead about four hours. He called Mucie, who told him that he'd been treating Nancy for about two weeks for a heart condition. Nancy's body was taken to the morgue, where a detective observed the autopsy, noting needle marks on her arms, buttocks, and left breast and taking custody of the uterus and the skull and upper spine of a fetus of roughly 4 1/2 to 5 months gestation still in the uterus. Most of the remainder of the fetus, consisting of a shoulder blade, upper arm and shoulder joint, and part of a collar bone, was found in the trash at Mucie's clinic.

The autopsy found abundant evidence of the abortion, including stains from antiseptic on Nancy's upper thighs and genital area, a 1/2 inch tear in Nancy's uterus. The condition of her uterus, heart, and other organs indicated that she had gone into shock and died at the clinic at about 9 a.m. February 8, in spite of Mucie's attempts to resuscitate her. She had bled to death.

Mucie was convicted on June 8, 1968, of performing an abortion "not necessary to preserve the life" of the mother. Illegal abortion at that time carried a penalty of 3-5 years, with the sentence to be increased in cases where the mother died. Mucie served 14 months then was released on parole. Parole was set to expire on July 27, 1977. His medical license was revoked on May 4, 1971. After Roe v. Wade overturned Missouri's abortion law, Mucie successfully appealed his conviction and got his license restored under a ruling that made Roe retroactive in Missouri. He was released from probation and his record expunged of the manslaughter-abortion conviction.

*****

Ruth Fragale death certificate

Care Delayed in 2013, Rumors Reveal Truth in 1871

She Needed Medical Care, not Equestrian Supplies

Jennifer McKenna-Morbelli, a 29-year-old kindergarten teacher, and her husband, Timothy James "TJ" Morbelli, had eagerly anticipated the birth of their baby, named Madison Leigh. However, because of a prenatal diagnosis, Jennifer, accompanied by her parents, husband, and sister traveled from New Rochelle, New York to a late-term abortion facility in Germantown, Maryland on Sunday, February 3, 2013. Madison was 33 weeks gestational age.

Germantown Reproductive Health Services is a National Abortion Federation member facility, which means that it supposedly provides only the best and safest care. However, it is operated by Dr. Leroy Carhart, who had already had a less than savory history and whose late term abortion clinic in Belleview, Nebraska, looks like a muffler shop and had employees coming forward reporting illegal and dangerous practices.

The prolifers who gather outside when Carhart is perpetrating abortions report seeing the woman arriving for her appointments on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, appearing "pale and weak." Jennifer spent over nine hours at the facility on Wednesday. After she was discharged, Carhart and his wife left the state to work at another abortion facility.

According to Operation Rescue's anonymous source, Jennifer started suffering chest pain early on Thursday morning. She was unsuccessful in her attempts to reach Carhart. Finally, at about 5:00 a.m. her family took her from the hotel to the emergency room. Hospital staff were unable to get in touch with Carhart either, though he eventually did return their calls.

Jennifer was suffering from massive internal bleeding and coded six times as staff struggled to stabilize her. She finally died at around 9:30 a.m.

Christin Gilbert

The medical examiner indicated that Jennifer died from disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (DIC) caused by an amniotic fluid embolism (AFE) -- in other words, amniotic fluid and fetal tissue got into her blood stream and caused a cascading series of catastrophic problems including the inability of her blood to clot.

AFE and DIC are rare and difficult to predict, but are also a known complication that abortion doctors should be alert for and ready to quickly diagnose and treat.

This is the second third-trimester abortion patient to die under Carhart's care. The first was Christin Gilbert, who was being treated by Carhart at George Tiller's Wichita abortion facility in 2004.


Rumors Lead to Exhumation and Discovery of Abortion

On February 11, 1871, Dr. C. C. O'Donnell was arrested for murder in the death of 20-year-old mother and homemaker, Addie Hand of Clemtina Street, San Francisco. Addie had died at her home on February 7.

"She was buried on a certificate that she had died of a congestive chill. The publicity given to startling rumors concerning her death led to the body being exhumed, when an examination disclosed the fact that an abortion had been preformed."

An inquest found that she had visited O'Donnell twice before her death. Addie's friend Jennie West testified that Addie had told her that O'Donnell had made two attempts to perform an abortion on her. Her sister-in-law also said that Addie had named O'Donnell as the abortionist. O'Donnell was arrested. However, there was insufficient evidence to hold him, and O'Donnell was released.

Addie's husband, Joseph, was left to care for their little daughter, May, who had been born just the previous June.

From the 1870s Through the 1980s

One of 16 Dead at National Abortion Federation Chain

Seventeen-year-old Laniece Dorsey underwent a safe and legal abortion at a Family Planning Associates Medical Group facility in Orange County, California, on February 6, 1986. FPA is a National Abortion Federation member facility.

Laniece lapsed into a coma, was transferred to a nearby hospital, and died later that day.

The Orange County Sheriff's Department medical examiner blamed the death on cardiorespiratory arrest due to the anesthesia, although he also found "a thick adherent layer of fibrinous material containing moderate numbers of inflammatory infiltrates" in Laniece's uterus.

Laniece wasn't the first or last young woman to die from abortion at a facility owned by FPA head honcho Edward Campbell Allred. Other patients known to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include

• Denise Holmes, age 24, 1970
• Patricia Chacon, age 16, 1984
• Mary Pena, age 43, 1984
• Josefina Garcia, age 37, 1985
• Joyce Ortenzio, age 32, 1988
• Tami Suematsu, age 19, 1988
• Deanna Bell, age 13, 1992
• Susan Levy, age 30, 1992
• Christina 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

Allred's facilities remain members of the National Abortion Federation despite these deaths.

Scanty Information from Cleveland

Life Dynamics lists 26-year-old billing clerk Kathy Davis on their "Blackmun Wall of safe and legal abortions. Citing Kathy's death certificate, Life Dynamics says that Kathy died at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital of heart failure and hypertension following a legal abortion on February 6, 1987.


An Airman's Grief

Elizabeth Hellman was the 35-year-old wife of an Air Force major who had been stationed in Tokyo for over a year. Evidently Betty found the separation lonely, for she became pregnant while he was away.

On January 28, 1952, Betty was admitted to the Tinker Air Force Base hospital in critical condition, suffering from pain and low blood pressure. Her red blood count was very low, and her white count very high, indicating infection. She admitted to having undergone an abortion on January 25.

When questioned by investigators on January 31, Betty said that friends had referred her to a woman named Jane. She was shown a photo and identified the woman in it, 43-year-old Mrs. Jane McDaniel White, as her abortionist. She gave White's address as the place she had gone for the abortion.

Betty said that White had put her off for several days while she got over her fear of undergoing the abortion. She promised White $100, but only paid her $50. White initiated the abortion with some kind of packing and sent Betty home.

Betty became very ill, and called White, who with her daughter came to Betty's home and "scraped her out".

After Betty gave her statement, police raided White's home. White and her daughter, Mrs. S. B. Anderson, Jr., were nowhere to be found. Police eventually tracked the pair down and arrested them for murder and procuring an abortion.

Betty died on February 6, from peritonitis. Her husband had managed to rush home from Tokyo in time to see his wife before she died. An autopsy verified that an abortion had been performed and had caused Betty's death.

The criminal case against White went well until the defense managed to have the Betty's deathbed statement, given on January 31, inadmissible because it couldn't be proved satisfactorily that Betty believed herself to be near death. With the deathbed statement thrown out, the case was dropped.

This had been White's third arrest for abortion charges. She had been convicted in 1947, under the name Jane McDaniel, and sentenced to seven years, but the conviction was thrown out on a technicality based on how advanced the girl's pregnancy had been. A new trial had been scheduled, but it never took place because the main prosecution witness had left the state or died. White was clearly operating as an abortionist, since an operating table, fashioned from an old restaurant table, and surgical instruments had been sized from her home at the time of her arrest -- "enough instruments and medicine to stock a small hospital." She was charged again in 1951 but the main witness had vanished and the case had been dismissed.


Mystery Abortion in Chicago

On February 6, 1919, 22-year-old homemaker Edna Griffith died at Chicago's Passavant Hospital from septic pneumonia initiating from complications of an abortion perpetrated by a person who was never identified.


Fatal Abortion Drugs

A Coroner's Inquest was held regarding the February 6, 1870 death of 22-year-old Mary Donigan. Mary died at the Brooklyn home of Mrs. Bridget Dillon, who testified that she'd known Mary for about 18 years. Mary had come to her home on a Monday afternoon about three weeks before her death, looking very sickly but not complaining of illness. By the time Friday came around, Mary was reporting being sick with diarrhea. Mrs. Dillon gave her some brandy at about 11:00 that night, but all this did was make Mary vomit.

Mary slept until noon the next day. Mrs. Dillon checked on her and found her appearing very ill. Mrs. Dillon offered to empty the slop pail in the room, but Mary said, "No, I've had a baby and it is in there; my mother sent me down to Margaret Farrell's, but she wouldn't keep me, so I thought I would come to you."

Mrs. Dillon looked in the pail and saw the baby, which she described as large -- in keeping with Mary's report of having been pregnant for about eight months. Mary reported that she had paid a doctor $5 for a bottle of medicine -- she refused to name this doctor -- and that she had thrown the bottle "in the water closet." Mrs. Dillon testified that Mary reported having taken the medicine about two or three weeks earlier, and that afterward she'd not felt her baby moving any more.

Mary likewise refused to divulge to Mrs. Dillon the name of her baby's father.

An old woman Mrs. Dillon believed to be Margaret Farrel came to help Mrs. Dillon care for Mary. Mrs. Dillon testified that she'd asked Mrs. Farrel what to do about the baby, and Mrs. Farrel had suggested getting a small box to bury the baby in. Mrs. Dillon went off in search of a box, and returned to Mary's room to find both Mrs. Farrel and the baby gone.

By Monday, Mary was up and dressed and went downstairs against Mrs. Dillon's advice. Mary quickly took ill again, so mrs. Dillon helped her back to her room and dosed her with castor oil. "She was quite exhausted."

Mrs. Dillon went to a druggist and described Mary's symptoms. The druggist provided some powders that she was to give to Mary every hour, but Mary didn't want to take more after the first dose, reporting that they only made her feel worse and blistered her mouth. Mrs. Dillon sent one of her "girls" to consult with the druggist but he had nothing further to offer.

Mary refused the services of either a doctor or a priest. The following morning, Mary had taken such a turn for the worse that Mrs. Dillon sent for both a doctor and a priest. The doctor, Matthew F. Regan, told Mrs. Dillon that Mary was dangerously ill.

Dr. Regan testified that he'd been summoned to a garret room where he found Mary in bed, "suffering from inflammation of the womb and the covering of the bowels." Mary reported being married and having suffered a miscarriage the preceeding Friday. Dr. Regan prescribed some medication and returned on Saturday.

At that time, Mary admitted that she wasn't married, and that she'd not seen a doctor or had any sort of abortion performed. He told her that her condition was very grave, "that I had seen women die who were not so low as she was." Mary identified a Mr. Burdie, who worked in the brick yards in Haverstraw, where Mary lived, as the father of the baby.

When Dr. Regan returned at noon on Sunday to check on Mary, he found her dead.

Dr. A. W. Shepard performed a post mortem examination on Mary and found no signs of instrumentation, but plenty of signs of infection in and around the uterus. He determined that she had died from an abortion.

A Refugee and a Diplomat's Daughter

She Lost Her Legs and Then Her Life

Carolina Guitierrez

Carolina Gutierrez, a part-time waitress who had come to the United States as a refugee from Nicaragua at age 13, was 20 years old when she went to Maber Medical Center, a storefront clinic stuck between a cigar factory and a bar in Miami for an abortion on December 19, 1995. Carolina's husband, 25-year-old Jose Linarte, did not want her to have the abortion, so Carolina got a friend to drive her back and forth to the clinic.

The evening after her abortion, Carolina had pain in her chest and abdomen. She called the clinic for help, but whoever answered the phone hung up on her.

Over the next two days, Carolina left messages on the clinic answering machine, but nobody returned her calls. On December 21st, she could hardly breathe, so her family called 911. She arrived at the emergency room already in septic shock. Carolina underwent an emergency hysterectomy at the hospital to try to halt the spread of infection from her perforated uterus. Carolina was put into the intensive care unit, where she battled for her life against the raging sepsis. She was on a respirator, with her fingers and feet going black with gangrene.

Relatives cared for her children, a five-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy, while Carolina's husband spent as much time as he could by her side. "I can't sleep. I try to take my mind off it, but it's impossible," he told the Miami Herald.

Carolina's 21st birthday came and went as she lay in the ICU. Doctors fought to help the young woman to gain enough strength to undergo amputation of her gangrenous limbs. Finally doctors took off both legs below the knee. But despite the hysterectomy, the amputations, and all their other efforts, Carolina died on February 5, 1996.

"I have lost the love of my life," Jose said in a press conference. "I'm heartbroken. They have taken my happiness away."

He remained bewildered about the abortion. "We wanted a child. That's all we talked about. We even bought clothes for the baby."

While investigating the clinic, owned by Maria Luisa and Roque Garcia, officials noted that although Carolina could not read English, her only consent form was in English -- and the line for her signature was blank. She had paid $225 in cash for the abortion that took her legs and her life.


Abortion Blamed on Midwife

On January 29, 1929, Glasgow native Louise Allman, age 25, underwent an abortion at the Chicago home of Amelia K. Jaruez, a midwife. The address is also listed as a medical facility, so evidently she provided care to legitimate patients there as well. On February 5, Louise died, leaving behind a husband, Stanley. Jaruez was held by the coroner on February 23, and indicted for homicide by a grand jury, but she was acquitted on July 2.


Mysterious Abortionists

On February 5, 1918, Carmile Ghant, a Black woman, died at 3746 State Street in Chicago from an abortion perpetrated by two doctors, Ges. Miller and Robert J. Miller. There is some odd mention of the defendants being "Outside labor force (incl. criminals" and the business owner of a bar or saloon.") It is therefore unclear if one or both of these doctors also owned a bar, or if the bar owner was somehow an accomplice in Carmile's death. Either way, the men were indicted on March 1, but the case never went to trial.


The Diplomat's Daughter

Mercedes Berriozabal

Fifteen-year-old Mercedes Berriozabal wasn't an ordinary schoolgirl. Her father, Felipi Berriozabal Jr., was living in Chicago as the Mexican Consul with his wife, Doloris, and their other children during the entirety of Mercedes's short life.The family was a highly respected one: Mercedes's grandfather, Felipe Berriozabal Sr., had been a highly regarded military and political man in Mexico.

According to her parents, Mercedes had gone to her mother on January 28, 1906, reporting that she was in pain. Mrs.Berriozabal told her husband. "I told Mrs. Berriozabel to take the girl to Dr. [Bayard] Holmes without delay. When they returned from the doctor's office my wife told me the terrible news. I could not believe it. Mercedes resisted all my questions. I could not learn from her that she had known any man or boy. She denied absolutely that such was the case."

Holmes said that on that initial visit he told Mrs. Berriozabal that "an operation should be performed," but that she took her daughter home without allowing him to operate. He said that he and his assistant, Dr. Moore, saw Mercedes again the following night.

At 11:00 the night of January 31, Mr. Berriozabal agreed to allow Holmes to admit Mercedes to Wesley Hospital under the name "Mercedes B. Zabal." "The operation was performed Thursday morning at 11 o'clock. It was finally found necessary to make an incision. While I have no positive evidence that another doctor had operated on the patient, I presumed from examination that such had been the case."

Mercedes died of blood poisoning on February 5. Holmes completed a falsified death certificate using the fake name and sent Mercedes' body directly to the undertaker in the wee hours of the morning of Wednesday, February 6. The undertaker reported the suspicious death to the coroner, who initiated an inquest. During the inquest, Holmes was asked, "Did you think that certificate would be accepted by the health department without an investigation?"

"I believed it would be," he replied. And when asked if he realized that he was covering up for two criminals with the falsification, he said, "I didn't look at it that way. I have concealed nothing and I am as anxious as you to solve the case."

Holmes was an extremely reputable physician, highly esteemed for his work in bacteriology and in establishing a medical library in Chicago among his other accomplishments. He evidently either was not suspected of having perpetrated the abortion attempt that had left Mercedes injured and in need of hospitalization, or was too highly connected to have official accusations made against him.

Since Mercedes was a tall girl who looked much older than she actually was, there evidently was some speculation that she might have been involved with an older man rather than a school mate.

Mercedes's mother and siblings moved back to Mexico, bringing her body with them for burial. Mercedes' father told reporters that the President of Mexico had sent him a telegram of condolence. "The publicity in this awful case has been particularly annoying, and as an investigation cannot bring me back my daughter, I and the other members of my family wish that the matter might be dropped. My daughter was as pure as any other girl. We thought her safe, but on one is safe in this savage town."

The investigation into Mercedes' death ran into a dead end after the family left the country. A former alderman told the police that he knew of a physician, whose name he refused to give, that might have treated her prior to her death, and the coroner admitted that he'd found some leads, but evidently there was insufficient evidence to ever charge anybody with the crime.

A Phony Clinic and Other Deaths

Death at a Phony Clinic

Like many abortion "clinics", Dr. Romeo Ferrer's private practice, Gynecare Center, would look to the untrained eye like an outpatient clinic. A patient making an appointment there would likely believe she was in a licensed clinic, not a doctor's office. (Their website, in fact, described the facility as "a modern, clean clinic designed to provide quality healthcare for women and girls of all ages in the Maryland area," even though, as the medical board noted, the facility was only a private doctor's office and not licensed as a clinic.)

Denise Crowe, was 21 years old, dropped her 3-year-old son off with a babysitter and drove to Ferrer's clinic-looking office for an abortion on February 3, 2006. She had $800 to pay for the procedure. She was 16 weeks pregnant.

"She thought she'd just have it done and nobody would know," her mother, Stephanie White, later told the Baltimore Sun.
Ferrer started the abortion, a D&E abortion, at about 1:00 p.m., using ultrasound to help him visualize the baby as he dismembered it. Twenty-five minutes later, Ferrer was still pulling fetal parts out of his patient, and administered 20 units of pitocin via an IV solution. Five minutes later, he added 125 mg of Demerol and 5 mg of midazolam (Versed, a short-acting sedative and amnesia-producing medication). Because "pt. was still reacting to pain", Ferrer administered additional doses of Demerol and midazolam. It wasn't until 1:45 that Ferrer completed the abortion.

Denise was moved to the recovery room, where at 1:47 a "surgical assistant" noticed signs of cyanosis (blue coloring) in Denise's fingernails. A nurse assistant was unable to get a blood pressure or pulse reading on Denise, and told Ferrer. He gave a verbal order for 0.4 mg Narcan, which was administered by the nurse assistant. Narcan is a drug to counteract narcotics.

Romeo Ferrer

At 1:50, Ferrer began efforts to resuscitate Denise, including performing CPR, and having an assistant perform CPR while he administered intracardiac epinephrine. Staff called 911 while Ferrer continued resuscitation efforts, maintaining an open airway with the non-professional method of head tilt and chin lift. Ferrer did not use an airway or endotracheal tube, as is customary with professionally-administered CPR.

The medics arrived to find Denise still unresponsive and without a pulse. The medics used an oxygen mask and additional drugs as they transported Denise to Anne Arundel Medical Center. There, emergency room staff continued the attempts to resuscitate her, to no avail. She was pronounced dead at 2:57 p.m.

The autopsy found no underlying physical reason for Denise's heart to have stopped. The cause of death was given as "Meperidine intoxication" (an overdose of Demerol).

The National Abortion Federation defended Ferrer, with spokeswoman Melissa Fowler telling the Annapolis Capital that abortion is safe due to "specialized quality care provided by clinics like Gynecare Center." This indicates that Gynecare was a National Abortion Federation member.

A Doctor and a Midwife in Chicago

On February 3, 1912, 37-year-old homemaker Helen Imhoff died on the scene from blood poisoning caused by an abortion perpetrated by Dr. W. A. Beringer and midwife Margaret Meyer. They were indicted by a Grand Jury on March 1, but the case never went to trial.


A Tragic Surprise

George Strugnall, a roofer and father of eight, told police the story of how his 16-year-old daughter Mary lost her life:

[Twenty-two-year-old Vernon] Keyser met my daughter a year ago. She was only 15 then and just out of grammar school, so my wife and I did all we could to discourage his attentions. He worked in his father's machine shop a few doors from our house and used to stop and see Mary every night. Sometimes he took her out.

A week ago my youngest boy, Raymond, 9 years old, was run over by a truck and his leg broken. Last Tuesday [January 29] my wife and I went to the People's hospital to see him, leaving Mary alone. When we returned, Mary was gone.

Keyser, the baby's father, told police:

About three months ago Mary said she was in trouble and asked me to help her. I didn't know what to do until a few weeks ago. I met Dr. [J. A.] Harter, who said he would take care of the case for $150 if I brought Mary to his office.

On Tuesday, when her parents were away, I took Mary to Dr. Harter's home. She was frightened ad began to struggle, but the doctor's brother [Irving Harter] and I held her on a table while the operation was performed. Five hours later I took her to the home of a Mrs. Irma McMullen, 7037 Clarmont avenue.

Mary's condition deteriorated, so to avert any suspicion he continued to stop at the Strugnell home daily asking after Mary.

On Friday, February 1, Harter told Keyser that he couldn't do anything more for Mary and suggested that he consult with Dr. J. A. Goodhart of South Kedqie Avenue. Goodhart immediately ordered that Mary be admitted to the county hospital.

Per Harter's instructions as to "the simplest way out of it," Keyser persuaded Mary to lie and say that she had done the abortion herself. She died on February 3.

Dr. Harter was originally sought both at his office on West 63rd Street and his home on West Marquette Road, without success. Eventually he was captured and tried for homicide, but acquitted. His brother Irvine was charged as an accessory. Keyner was charged with rape and accessory to murder.

A Planned Parenthood Referral and Three Other Deaths

A Planned Parenthood Referrall Leads to a Mysterious Death

Elizabeth Tsuji, a 21-year-old Cal State student, underwent a safe and legal 8-week abortion at a local Planned Parenthood on November 11, 1977. She called the clinic in December to report that she was still not menstruating, but staff assured her that the abortion had been successful.

On February 1, 1978, Elizabeth confirmed that she was indeed still pregnant, five months along. The Planned Parenthood clinic referred her to Inglewood General Hospital for a saline abortion.

That evening, she packed a nightgown and told her family she was going to spend the night at a friend's house. That was the last time they saw her alive.

Elizabeth underwent the abortion on February 2, and died that day. Two autopsies were performed, neither of which could find a definitive cause of the young woman's death.

Abortionist Morton Barke was somehow involved, although documents aren't clear what his role was in her death. Barke also worked at the unsavory San Vicente Hospital. He is known to have been a partner at Inglewood and to have been involved in the deaths of Yvonne Tanner and Lynette Wallace. His involvement might have been that he served in a supervisory role.

The other women who met their deaths at Inglewood include Kathy Murphy, Cora Lewis, and Belinda Byrd. Other women who were referred for fatal abortions by Planned Parenthood include Christi Stile, Sandra Kaiser, and Andrea Corey.


One of Three Dead Patients of Dr. Justin Mitchell

Dr. Justin Mitchell

On February 2, 1936, 20-year-old homemaker and mother-of-two Alice Haggin died in Chicago from abortion complications. 

Dr. Justin L. Mitchell, age 57, of Palos Park, was charged by the Grand Jury on March 10 in Alice's death. Just 11 days after Alice's death, Mitchell was convicted in the abortion death of 32-year-old Mary Nowalowski. Mitchell had been implicated two years earlier in the abortion death of Mary Schwartz.


An Unknown Perpetrator

On February 2, 1926, Alberta Handy, a 38-year-old Black woman, died of a botched abortion in Chicago. The perpetrator was never caught.


A Doctor Wins a New Trial

On February 2, 1916, Ruth Camp died from complications of an illegal abortion performed in Denver, Colorado. Dr. Bennett Graff was found guilty of murder in Ruth's death, and sentenced to 11 - 13 years in prison. Graff protested "stoutly" and appealed the conviction. While awaiting trial in Ruth's death, another woman, Beulah Hatch, died at Denver's Mercy Hospital, and blame was placed on Graff for that death as well. Graff was found guilty of murder in Ruth's death, and sentenced to 11 - 13 years in prison, but won a new trial when a witness came forward and placed the responsibility for the abortion on a lay practitioner and asserted that Graff was merely attempting life-saving aftercare for Ruth.