What the heck is an apparent fetus?

Apparent Fetus Discovered in Bathroom of NYC Flight

FBI Special Agent Shauna Dunlap said that while the plane was being cleaned about an hour after the plane landed Sunday, the cleaning crew found the apparent fetus. The medical examiner's office will do an autopsy to determine if it was viable.

This sounds like the question is, "Was this a miscarried/aborted fetus or a premature infant?"

Reminds me of the moment -- was it in "Jaws" or a Mad Magazine spoof of "Jaws"? -- in which somebody is looking for someone to consult about "the alleged shark". He's told "The alleged shark bit off his alleged head. Also his alleged arms and legs."

RU dreaming?

FDA Asks Maker of Abortion Drug Mifepristone for Safety Plan by September

The Food and Drug Administration has asked the makers of 25 drugs, including the dangerous abortion pill mifepristone (RU 486), to submit safety plans later this year. The FDA published the list of drugs needing safety plans in the latest issue of the Federal Register and abortion drug maker Danco Laboratories made the list.

The drug manufacturers must devise a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) plan and submit it to the agency by September 21. Those who don't comply by the deadline face "enforcement action," which could include monetary penalties from FDA officials.

Fat lot of good that'll do. It's not the drug manufacturer that's causing the deaths. After all, the drugs that are part of the cocktail are therapeutic medications with legitimate uses. It's a choice to misuse them that's causing the trouble. Even if you consider abortion to be a legitimate use of medications, the abortionists in question are failing to follow the existing safety guidelines. Promulgating new ones won't change the character of the quacks who prescribe this stuff in violation of guidelines in the first place.

And of course it's women and families who pay the price:

• Chanelle Bryant
  
• Holly Patterson
  
• Cherish Roe
  
• Tara Roe
  
• Wanda Roe
  
• Oriane Shevin
  
• Vivian Tran
  
• Brenda Vise

These are just the women that the FDA found out about. People who administer drugs in an off-label manner aren't exactly the kind of people who are going to follow through on other matters, such as reporting the deaths to the proper authorities. Not to mention if a woman was keeping the abortion as secret, nobody may ever find out that it was abortion drugs that caused her death.

And then there are the cases where the woman manages to survive, such as the woman who was given RU-486 even though she was nine months pregnant and in the middle of a life-threatening medical crisis already.

More guidelines and recommendations won't stop this sort of behavior. People with that kind of callous disregard for human life belong in jail.

And, interestingly enough, in most of the US cases identified, the people in question worked either for Planned Parenthood or the National Abortion Federation.

Astonishing new levels of abortion advocacy cluelessness

When Obama Voted "No"

It's like picking on Hillary for her tales of dodging sniper fire, going after Dana Goldstein's "misspeaks". I'll give it a go purely for entertainment's sake, since it's not like she or any of her acolytes are about to stop misspeaking any time soon.

She's defending Obama for voting no on the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Just one single paragraph provides abundant fodder:

BAIPA targets the abortion procedure known as dilation and extraction, which anti-choicers have so successfully re-branded as "partial birth abortion." Dilation and extraction accounts for less than one-fifth of one percent of all American abortions, and is used most often to end wanted pregnancies in which expectant parents learn their baby will not be viable outside of the womb. During the operation, the fetus' skull is capsized inside of the woman, after which labor is induced and she delivers the fetus.

1. "BAIPA targets the abortion procedure known as dilation and extraction, which anti-choicers have so successfully re-branded as 'partial birth abortion.'" No, not really, since removing the baby's brain pretty much renders him or her incapable of being born alive. Now, should a baby manage to be born alive, then yes, BAIPA would apply, but only because he or she happened to survive. Repeat: BAIPA would only kick in if the baby managed to come out alive before the abortionist managed to stab him or her in the skull with a scissors and suck out the brain.

2a. "Dilation and extraction accounts for less than one-fifth of one percent of all American abortions, and is used most often to end wanted pregnancies in which expectant parents learn their baby will not be viable outside of the womb." And Jeffrey Dahmer killed less than one-fifth of one percent of all American homosexuals. I guess that means he wasn't a problem to be addressed, by Ms. Goldstein's reckoning.

2b. "Dilation and extraction accounts for less than one-fifth of one percent of all American abortions, and is used most often to end wanted pregnancies in which expectant parents learn their baby will not be viable outside of the womb." Not true. Ron Fitzsimmons admitted that he "lied through [his] teeth" when he passed this claim along. Most of them are performed for the same reasons any abortions are performed -- for social reasons. Others are performed for Down Syndrome or other non-lethal conditions that cause parents to judge the baby's life not worth living. (So much for diversity.)

3a. "During the operation, the fetus' skull is capsized inside of the woman, after which labor is induced and she delivers the fetus." Um, Ms. G., to capsize is to cause a vessel to flip over in the water. The word you were looking for it "collapse". If you can't even get your vocabulary right, I have little faith in your ability to get much else correct. Rightly so, as we've already seen.

3b. "During the operation, the fetus' skull is capsized inside of the woman, after which labor is induced and she delivers the fetus." PBA or D&X is not an induction abortion. Those are performed by our curious Georges, George Tiller and George Pendergraft. They inject digoxin into the baby's heart to kill him (thus ensuring that the BAIPA doesn't apply), then they start dilating the mother's cervix. In a PBA or D&X, the cervix is dilated, and the baby is pulled out feet-first until only the head remains undelivered. Then the abortionist sticks him or her in the base of the skull with a blunt, curved Mentzenbaum scissors to make a hole into which he then sticks a straw and sucks out the baby's brain with a suction machine. There is no labor induced.

On the state Senate floor on April 4, 2002, he explained, "This issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births. Because if there are children being born alive, I, at least, have confidence that a doctor who is in that room is going to make sure that they're looked after."

Anybody who believes that also believes in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. William Baxter Waddill (pictured) strangled a live-born baby in front of multiple witnesses. Raymond Showery attempted smothering a live born baby, to no avail, so he tied her up in a plastic bag and left her to suffocate. And these are just the guys who got caught.

Of course, the idea that otherwise viable babies are regularly "born alive" during abortions is an invention of the anti-choice movement.

First of all, nobody said it happened "regularly". We're just asserting that it does happen. And we weren't the ones to say so. Actually, it was Willard Cates, rabidly pro-abortion scion of the Centers for Disease Control, who said that around 500 such infants were reported as being born alive annually in the United States. And Cates said that surely there were many more that went unreported, since reporting these birth was "like turning yourself in to the IRS for an audit". (Liz Jeffries and Rick Edmonds, "Abortion, The Dreaded Complication," The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 2, 1981, 4 page insert.)

Ninety percent of abortions are performed within the first 16 weeks of pregnancy through a procedure called aspiration, in which a surgical vacuum is used to empty out a woman's uterus. The second most common abortion procedure is dilation and evacuation, which takes place in rare cases after 16 weeks of pregnancy, often when a woman's health or life is at risk. Under that procedure, the aspiration process is sometimes preceded by an injection into the abdomen that ensures fetal demise.

1. Vacuum aspiration is only done through about 12 weeks.

2. If 90% of abortions are done in the first 16 weeks, that still leaves 10% done after 16 weeks. This hardly constitutes "rare". Especially when you consider that 10% of 1.2 million is over a hundred thousand. Compare that to 43,000 traffic fatalities per year.

3. Abortions past 16 weeks are done for the same reasons as abortions before 16 weeks. Social reasons. The maternal indication abortions make up a portion of the roughly 7% done for all "hard cases" combined -- maternal and fetal indications, and rape and incest. And "maternal indications" might be anything the woman decides consitutes a "medical" reason in her personal opinion. It could be anything from heartburn or wanting to avoid stretch marks to full-blown life-threatening medical emergencies. Nobody is doing any kind of breakdown. And "fetal indiations" can be anything from remembering that she had a glass of wine during the first trimester and thinking "Why risk it?" to anencephaly. Again, nobody is doing any kind of breakdown as to what percentage of "fetal indication" abortions are due to confirmed lethal conditions and what percentage are due to the mother just being uneasy and deciding she'd rather not risk giving birth to a less than perfect baby.

4. The doctor doesn't always do the injection, and sometimes it fails. Witness Ana Rosa Rodriguez, who was born at 32 weeks, minus her arm, in the process of what her mother thought was a 12-week abortion.

So the only abortion procedure that could ever result in an intact fetus outside the uterus is the extremely rare dilation and extraction.

Don't forget the induction abortions performed by Tiller and Pedergraft. Not to mention that sometimes the doctors screw up and miscalculate a gestational age. They try to perform what they think is an early abortion and it turns out the baby is nearer to term. Sometimes he or she is born alive. And sometimes somebody just figures he'll do an illegal third-trimester abortion, hoping he won't get caught. And sometimes those babies are born alive.

Dilation and extraction is such a rare operation that most hospitals won't perform one in a year, let alone conduct more than one in a day.

They're not done in hospitals. They're done in freestanding outpatient facilities. And they're done in groups. Tiller typically has about a dozen patients a day. Does anybody know how many Haskell and Pendergraft do a day?

I wanted to provide links substantiating what I say, but my internet is not working well. I have a small window to post this at all. I'll add the links as my service permits me access to the net. Rachael, et. al, please post what you can in the comments!

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Anniversary: Abortion kills mom; doc blamed

On March 29, 1924, 30-year-old Etta Marcus died at Chicago's Francis Willard Hospital from complications of a criminal abortion performed that day. The coroner concluded that Dr. William J. Wick had performed the fatal abortion at his office. However, on April 10, Wick was acquitted for reasons not disclosed in the source material. Etta's abortion was typical of criminal abortions in that it was attributed to a physician.

Harpo's Hungarian Rhapsody

Totally appropos of nothing. I just couldn't resist.



Enjoy!

Anniversary: Abortion by midwife proves fatal

On March 27, 1926, 24-year-old Louise Maday died at Chicago's West End Hospital from complications of an abortion performed that day. Midwife Amelia Becker was held by the coroner on April 27.

Anniversary: Mystery abortion death in Pittsburgh

According to the National Organization for Women web site, Clara Bell Duvall was a 32-year-old married mother of five, aged 6 months to 12 years. She and her family were living with her parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania due to financial problems. NOW says that Clara attempted a self-induced abortion with a knitting needle. Though she was seriously ill and severe pain, NOW says, Clara's doctor delayed hospitalizing her for several weeks. Her death, at a Catholic hospital on March 27, 1929, was attributed to pneumonia.

I'd welcome any verifying information on Mrs. Duvall's death. After all, NOW also claims that Becky Bell died from complications of an illegal abortion, when in fact she died of pneumonia concurrent with a miscarriage. (There was no evidence that Becky's pregnancy had been tampered with in any way.) But if people who think abortion is a good idea want to blame Clara's death on abortion, I'll let them claim her as somebody their ideology killed.

Clara Duvall seems to be the woman described in the chapter, "Marilyn," in The Worst of Times by Patricia G. Miller. Marilyn was Clara's daughter. There are differences in Marilyn's story and in the story NOW relates, but so many other details match that it is unlikely that they're describing different women.

Marilyn gives her mother's name as Claudia, and her age as 34. The difference in ages may be attributed to people taking the years of the woman's birth and death and calculating her age without taking the months into account, or due to Marilyn misremembering her mother's age. As for the name difference, Marilyn said that her mother sang with the Pittsburgh light opera company, so it is possible that Claudia had a stage name that NOW used when telling her story. Or Marilyn might have been using a false name for her mother to preserve the family's privacy.

Clara/Claudia's association with the opera company may also explain the elegant portrait on NOW's site -- a portrait that a poverty-stricken and desperate woman would have been unlikely to afford.

The following facts match:

• Five children, from an infant to a 12-year-old
  
• Living in Pittsburgh
  
• Died in March of 1929
  
• Death originally attributed to pneumonia
  
• The woman used a knitting needle
  
• Was at home for several days before being hospitalized
  
• Died in a hospital
  
• Cared for until her death by her usual doctor who seemed at a loss as to how to care for his moribund patient

Marilyn said that her brother Gerald was the oldest, twelve years old when Clara died. Eileen was ten. Rose was eight, Marilyn was six, and Constance was 18 months. Marilyn describes poignantly the difference between her life before her mother's death and her life after losing her mother. The loss was truly shattering for the entire family.

Marilyn said that her mother had gotten help from a friend for a successful abortion between the births of Marilyn and Constance. Marilyn didn't have any details of the first abortion, and got what she knew about the fatal abortion from her sister Eileen, who had spoken at length with their mother when she was hospitalized.

NOW's story differs from Marilyn's in many aspects, however. Aside from the different age and name, the following aspects do not match:

• NOW has the family living with the woman's parents; Marilyn said that they were living in a large house owned by the woman's parents.
  
• NOW indicates that the family were too poor to afford a home of their own. Marilyn said that they lived in a large house, and that her father was an editor of one of Pittsburgh's daily newspapers, and that he did freelance public relations for sports events. Marilyn also said that one of her mother's friends was the wife of a well-known Pittsburgh industrialist. This is not a likely friendship for a destitute woman forced to move her family of seven into her parents' home. Marilyn also said that her mother was laid to rest in a magnificent mahogany casket with a satin lining, hardly the sort of burial a poverty-crushed widower could afford for his dead wife. Marilyn also said that the casket lay in the parlor, not a room that poor people were likely to have. In fact, Marilyn describes how shocking it was, after her mother's death, to go live with poor relatives. Poverty was a new experience for the child. In fact, Marilyn describes an riverboat outing the family took before her mother's death. She described how the girls were dressed in matching navy blue coats with red satin linings, and her brother had a jacket and tie.

So there are two possibilities:

1. Clara Bell Duvall and Claudia are two different women, both with five children, both of whom lived in homes owned by their parents, who both performed knitting-needle abortions in the same city in the same month, and who both died in hospitals and both had their deaths wrongly attributed to pneumonia.
   
2. Clara and Claudia are the same woman, and but NOW turned her from a prosperous matron and opera singer into a wretched slum mother in order to make her situation seem more desperate.

I will be going to the library at my next opportunity to research the Pittsburgh newspaper and see what I can learn.

If what NOW and Marilyn describe is accurate, then Clara/Claudia's abortion was unusual in that it was self-induced, rather than performed by a doctor, as was the case with perhaps 90% of criminal abortions.

A beautiful life

Go see the video Jill posted about the baby who had 29 days of love.

Anniversary: Safe, legal, and fatal

Gail Wright was 29 years old when she underwent a legal abortion. She was 20 weeks pregnant. After her abortion, she developed sepsis. She died of adult respiratory distress syndrome on March 26, 1986, leaving behind a husband.

Anniversary: Abortion by osteopath proves fatal

On March 25, 1962, Jolene Joyce Griffith died of complications of a back alley abortion performed March 3 by Dr. J. Bryan Henrie, an osteopath, 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 had been admitted to a hospital in Tulsa, where she was treated until her death.

Jolene's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a doctor.

Anniversary: Woman bullied into illegal abortion loses battle for life

On March 24, 1947, Ilene Eagen lost her battle for her life.

On March 21, Ilene Eagen had been brought to Mankato, Minnesota, to the dental office of W. A. Groebner for an abortion. Court records indicate that Ilene was pressured into the abortion by her paramor, Raymond Older, who refused to marry her and threatened her with bodily harm if she refused an abortion.

After the abortion, Ilene became violently ill and lost consciousness. Groebner and Older failed to seek or provide properly care for the sick woman. Instead, Older took Ilene to his service station in Granada, Minnesota and kept her there through the remaineder of the night, into the morning of March 22.

Older allowed Ilene to languish without medical care. She died March 24.

Ilene left a seven-year-old daughter motherless.

Older tried to escape civil liability on the grounds that despite his refusal to marry her, and the threats, Ilene had consented to the abortion and that therefore she was responsible for her own sickness and subsequent death.

Make up your mind already!

California is considering a bill to allow women in late pregnancy, and with newborns, temporary handicapped parking status.

I'm with the opponents of the bill who point out that exercise is good for most pregnant women, and that those women who develop health problems during pregnancy already can qualify for temporary handicapped parking status.

But we have another opponent of the bill. And while I agree with what she says, I think this is the last person on earth who ought to be saying it:

Helen Grieco, executive director of the California chapter of the National Organization for Women, said the bill inadvertently could send the wrong societal message.

"It's very much a normal part of a woman's life — we have children," Grieco said. "So we've always been troubled by framing pregnancy as a disability."

This from somebody who heads an organization that frames pregnancy as such a dreadful, life-destroying thing that without access to immediate "cure" of the horrible disease via abortion, women are helpless, disenfranchised non-participants in society who can't even begin to function at all, much less make it from their cars to the supermarket.

Look, Grieco, riddle me this. Is pregnancy a perfectly normal thing women can cope with or not? Pick one, okay?

Anniversary: Doc performs fatal back alley abortion

On March 21, 1927, Nancy Dawson died on-site from a criminal abortion performed that day. That same day, Dr. J.F. Peck and midwife Christine Sedwig were booked for murder. They were indicted for felony murder on April 1.

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

Anniversary: Abortion proves fatal. Illegal or not?

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 doctor.

Anniversary: Criminal abortion kills woman

On March 20, 1906, Anna Gosch died from complications of a criminal abortion evidently performed by her boyfriend with a catheter of some sort. The boyfriend, a Mr. Edwards, had consulted a physician to treat Anna after the abortion, to no avail. 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. It was also unusual in that it was performed by an amateur, rather than by a doctor, as was the case with perhaps 90% of criminal abortions

Anniversary: Diagnostic failure by abortionist costs mom life

Magnolia Reed Thomas was a 35-year-old mother of two when she went to Hedd Surgi-Center in Chicago for an abortion, performed by Rudolph Moragne on February 19, 1986.

Moragne failed to note that the fetus was growing in Magnolia's fallopian tube, rather than in her uterus. After Magnolia was discharged from the clinic, the undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy ruptured, and Magnolia was rushed to the hospital. There, doctors did everything they could to save her, but she died from blood loss and shock before the day was over.

This was Magnolia's third abortion. Multiple abortions are a known risk factor for ectopic pregnancy.

Another patient, Diane Watson, died of anesthesia compliations after she'd undergone a safe, legal abortion by Moragne at Hedd.

Even though, in theory, women who choose abortion should be less likely to die of ectopic pregnancy complications, experiences shows that they're actually more likely to die, due to sloppy practices by abortion practitioners.

Abortion and the Milgram Experiment

A post-abortive mom has this excellent guest post, exploring how the infamous Milgram Experiment, in which subjects were convinced to give what they believed were lethal shocks.

A Boon to Child Rapists

A 19-year-old man stands accused of raping a 13-year-old girl -- then giving her the "morning-after pill" to cover up his crime. Better living through chemistry, right?

Anniversary: Cervical laceration in legal abortion turns fatal

Cycloria Vangates died on St. Patrick's Day of 1976, four days after undergoing a safe, legal abortion performed by Dr. Paul Glassman. Cycloria had suffered a cervical laceration. The Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine found that Glassman failed to adequately treat Cycloria's injury. Glassman paid out $386,875 to Cycloria's survivors, according to a malpractice liability search.

Glassman's license was finally revoked for three years beginning in 1981. He later recovered his license on the condition that he undergo close supervision and not perform any more abortions. Glassman moved to Missouri, but his attorney revealed to the Florida Board of Osteopathic medical Examiners that Glassman performed 17 abortions while visiting in Fort Lauderdale, in an effort to prove that the ban against Glassman performing abortions was unnecessary.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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Love to Last a Lifetime

Love to last a lifetime: The story of a couple who embraced every moment of their son's short life.

Anniversary: Safe, legal abortion leaves two children motherless

On March 14, 1989, 31-year-old Glenda Davis died in a Texas hospital from complications of an abortion performed by Robert Hanson at Aaron Family Planning three days earlier. During the abortion, Glenda had suffered a 1.5 - 2 inch long wound to her uterine artery and vein complex. After a delay, staffers finally decided to transfer Glenda to the hospital. Her husband discovered staffers attempting unsuccessfully to transfer Glenda from a wheelchair to a staffer's car. He helped them get Glenda into the car.

With the IV still in her arm, Glenda was driven to HCA Memorial Hospital. She had no blood pressure and almost no pulse upon arrival. She remained in a coma until her death.

The legalise can't disguise the anguish of Glenda's family: "Prior to the aforementioned breaches and negligence of these Defendants, Glenda H. Davis was a happy and healthy woman. ... Your minor Plaintiffs [Glenda's two children] have suffered and will continue to suffer from the great loss of the care, ...guidance, protection, ... love, affection, solace, comfort, companionship, society and assistance from their mother. Plaintiffs experienced the horror of watching the devastation of their mother's condition on a day to day basis. This horror was further complicated by their having to deal with the anguish of missing the love and attention of their mother. They were too young to understand what and why this had happened. They could only feel abandoned. ... Their family has been destroyed and the loving parent-child relationship they once had has been forever terminated."

Anniversary: Back alley abortion proves fatal

On March 14, 1930, Alberta Beard, age 29, died at the office of Dr. Davis Lucas from an abortion performed there that day. Lucas was arrested on May 24, on recommendation of the coroner. He was indicted for felony murder in Alberta's death on August 7. Alberta's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.

Did your senator vote to protect teens?

How did he or she vote on funding to enforce the Child Custody Protection Act?

I would also propose that anybody who usurps the parental role also needs to assume 100% financial responsibility for the repercussions of having gone behind the parents' backs. Including big fat punative damages for the damage done to the integrity of the family, especially if the girl dies.

And if it was them, their drinking buddy, or their kid who knocked her up, DOUBLE the damages.

Go here to contact your senator.

Anniversary: Back alley fatality

On March 12, 1928, 24-year-old Julia Agoston died at St. Elizabeth's Hospital of complications of a criminal abortion that had been performed February 4 in her Chicago home.

On March 31, Dr. Anton Feher, Dr. Helen Moskowitz, Susie Kosmos, and Manhart Agoston were held by the coroner. The physicians were held as principals. The two laypersons were held as accessories. Moskowitz was indicted for felony murder on November 23.

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

Two anniversaries. Is only one tragic?

Sidney Knight was facing a number of criminal abortion charges in 1973, when Roe v. Wade made them a moot point. He hung out his shingle and began performing abortions legally. In March of 1974, Janet Blaum went to Knight's New Orleans facility for an abortion. Five days later, on March 11, she was dead of brain hemorrhage. Janet's ex-husband sued Knight on behalf of the couple's children, alleging that Knight had administered a fatal dose of anesthesia while preparing Janet for the abortion.

On March 11, 1929, 30-year-old Catherine Mau died from complications of an abortion performed on February 13 at the hands of Chicago midwife Anna Heisler. On July 20, 1929, Heisler was sentenced to Joliet Penitentiary for Catherine's death.

Fetal parts, patient records in dumster

Medical Waste, Patient Records Found in Michigan Abortion Center Dumpster

Acting on a tip from a local pro-life group, Michigan officials have found parts of unborn children, medical waste and patient records in a dumpster outside an abortion center. The potentially illegal dumping occurred outside the WomanCare abortion center on Southfield Road and the contents are believed to be from the abortion business.

The abortion business in question is -- no big surprise here -- a National Abortion Federation member facility, featuring practitioner Abraham Alberto Hodari, who safely and legally sent Tamiia Russell and Chivon Williams to meet their Maker.



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Two back alley abortion anniversaries

On March 9, 1921, Iva J. Triplett died of septicemia and peritonitis under the care of Dr. C. W. Milliken. She had been ill ever since Milliken had performed an abortion on her in Akron on March 1. She left a widower and children. Iva's survivors sued, not only for the injury but for failure to inform Iva's family of the nature of her illness so that they could seek and provide appropriate care for her. Iva's abortion was typical of pre-legalization abortions in that it was performed by a physician.

On March 9, 1929, Alline L. Brown died in Chicago from a criminal abortion. The culprit was never identified or brought to justice.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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Jill Stanek takes another look at PP's financial games

Planned Parenthood accused of overcharging CA for contraceptives

More evidence to support my contention that PP's not as enamored of abortion as a money maker as they are enamored of abortion as a way of keeping customers in the non-pregnant state that has them coming in for contraceptives. There are two sure things that will bankrupt an organazation that makes a killing on contraceptives: chaste females, and pregnancies that get carried to term.

Anniversary: Safe, legal abortion kills mom

Connie was 31 years old when she 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.

Anniversary: Safe, legal pre-Roe abortion causes woman's death

In early March of 1972, Colleen traveled from Michigan to New York for a safe and legal abortion. She was 21 years old and 20 weeks pregnant. Colleen had a history of asthma. During the abortion, she went into respiratory arrest. She died March 8.

Anniversary: Incomplete abortion kills teen

Sixteen-year-old Rita McDowell died on March 8, 1975, after a string of events that had begun earlier in the month. Rita was the daughter of Ethel Kennedy's part-time housekeeper. On March 4, Robert Sherman performed an abortion on Rita. When Rita was discharged, her mother was informed that she would probably expel the fetus that night. 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 fetus, but she died 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 claimed to develop heart problems during the murder trial. He 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 ver practicing medicine again. Sherman served two years in a federal prison, then set up a legal abortion practice in Boston.

Anniversary: Abortion anesthesia proves fatal

Gwendolyn Cliett, age 29, was about to undergo an elective abortion and tubal ligation at Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia on March 5, 1980. She was 8 to 10 weeks pregnant. Before the proecdure could be done, Gwendolen reacted to the anesthesia and died.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



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Anniversary: Criminal abortion by "professional" proves fatal

On March 5, 1900, Mrs. Alide Koester died in German Hospital from complications of an illegal abortion evidently performed there that day by Maria Janke. Janke was arrested March 10, and held by Coroner's Jury on March 11. She was sentenced by Judge Clifford to Joliet Penitentiary. Janke's employment status is listed as "professional", but nothing more specific is indicated to clarify why she would be performing an illegal abortion in a hospital.

Anniversary: NAF member clinic performs fatal abortion on teen

Sixteen-year-old Patricia Chacon underwent a second-trimester 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. Patty 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 Patty died of an embolism during the second surgery. (He pronounced her dead at 4:30 PM.) Patty's parents claim that the child bled to death while
left unattended.

An autopsy found numerous catgut sutures in Patty's vagina and hemorrhage in her uterus. Death was attributed to disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (inability of the blood to clot properly) due to abortion-induced amniotic fluid embolism (amniotic fluid in the mother's blood). Patty's parents sued Allred and Orleans for their daughter's death.

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



Patricia is one of many abortion patients to die at one of Edward Allred's facilities. Others known to have died after abortion at Allred's facilities include:

• Denise Holmes, age 24, 1970
  
• Mary Pena, age 43, 1984
  
• Josefina Garcia, age 37, 1985
  
• Lanice Dorsey, age 17, 1986
  
• Joyce Ortenzio, age 32, 1988
  
• Tami Suematsu, age 19, 1988
  
• Susan Levy, age 30, 1992
  
• Deanna Bell, age 13, 1992
  
• Christina Mora, age 18, 1994
  
• Kimberly Neil, 2000
  
• Chanelle Bryant, age 22, 2004
  

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Anniversary: "This baby can't live or it will be a big mess."

On March 2, 1977, a high school student named Mary W. checked into Westminster Community Hospital in California for a saline abortion to be performed by Dr. William Baxter Waddill. She had been examined by another ob/gyn on February 22, and he had informed her that, since she was 28 weeks into her pregnancy by his estimate, she was too far along for an abortion. He advised Mary to consider making an adoption plan. But somehow Mary had learned that Waddill would be willing to do the abortion, even at this late point in pregnancy. Waddill initiated the abortion by saline injection and left Mary in the care of the nurses.

Mary's baby, a 2 lb, 8 oz infant girl, was expelled that evening and discovered by a nurse who was attending Mary. The nurse clamped the cord and was about to put the baby in a bucket for transport to the pathology lab, when she noticed that the infant was moving and crying. Another nurse suggested putting the baby in the bucket anyway. Yet another nurse testified that she had seen the infant move but said nothing about this to avoid distressing Mary. The first nurse summoned the nursing supervisor, who noted that the baby was pink and making sucking motions. She sent the baby to the nursery and summoned Waddill.

A nurse at the nursery cleared the infant's throat, placed her in an isolette, and charted a heartrate of 88. A neonatal ICU nurse began providing respiratory assistance on the little girl, and asked for help performing an intubation, which is routine NICU care. Waddill arrived and dismissed all the others from room. Several witnesses heard Waddill instruct staff "not to do a goddam thing for the baby." An ER doctor saw Waddill squeeze the umbilical cord, whereupon the "child jerked its body and gasped for air."

During Waddill's trial, a tape was entered into evidence of a call from Waddill to a pediatrician, Dr. Ronald Cornelsen. The tape had Waddill telling Dr. Cornelsen to come to the hospital, because the law required a pediatrician to assist when a newborn was in distress. Waddill said, "If we all tell the same story, there will be no trouble. ... So long as we stand together, no one anywhere can make any accusations anywhere. ... Do not get squirrely. Just tell them exactly as we've discussed. Just say you went in, there was no heartbeat and you left."

Dr. Cornelsen testified that when he arrived at the hospital the infant, a baby of about 31 weeks gestation, was breathing and had a heart rate of 60-70. There were bruises on her neck. Dr. Cornelson said that Waddill told him, "Sorry to get you in this mess. We had a baby that came out live from a saline abortion, and it can't live!" Dr. Cornelsen testified that he saw Waddill press on the infant's neck, saying, "I can't find the goddam trachea," and "This baby won't stop breathing." Dr. Cornelsen testified, "I said, 'Why not just leave the baby alone?' He said, 'This baby can't live or it will be a big mess.'" Waddill requested potassium choloride, for an injection to stop the baby's heart, but Dr. Cornelsen wouldn't let the nurse get it. Dr. Cornelsen said Waddill also asked for a bucket to drown the baby in.

Waddill claimed that he hadn't strangled the baby, that she had died of natural causes before he even arrived at the hospital to deal with the delivery. He also said that all of his actions were done in the best interests of the mother and the baby.

A pathologist examined the baby's lungs and concluded that she'd been alive for at least 30 minutes. The neck trauma was "consistent with manual pressure, and inconsistent with saline." This pathologist also testified that only the infant's placenta and small bowel seemed to have been "significantly affected by the saline," meaning that the baby had not suffered fatal injury from exposure to the saline in-utero. The autopsy found the cause of the baby's death to have been "manual strangulation." The baby's gestational age was determined to have been 29 to 31 weeks at autopsy. This is consistent with the gestational age estimated by the ob/gyn who had suggested an adoption plan.

All told, over 13 weeks of testimony, the witnesses described three unsuccessful attempts by Waddill to strangle Mary's baby, and the fourth, successful, attempt. But during deliberations, the jury asked for clarification of a procedural point. A few phone calls to clarify the point led to the discovery by the attorneys and judge that there was a definition of "death" in the California health and safety code that the jury had not been informed of. Because the testimony hadn't directly addressed this particular definition of "death," the jurors became hopelessly deadlocked over whether Waddill's actions, though clearly causing what laymen would consider the "death" of the baby, had caused what the law would call the "death" of the baby. The judge had to delcare a mistrial. A second jury was also deadlocked, and the charges against Waddill were eventually dismissed.

Mary later sued Waddill, saying that he'd never told her that her baby might been born alive, and that she never would have consented to the abortion had she known this was possible. She said that Waddill "willfully and unlawfully used force and violence upon the person of the baby [W.] ... causing the decedent baby [W.] to die."

Waddill continued to perform abortions in California, and as of 2000 was working for National Abortion Federation member Family Planning Associates Medical Group, a chain where the following women and girls suffered fatal abortions: Deanna Bell, Chanelle Bryant, Patricia Chacon, Laniece Dorsey, Josefina Garcia, Denise Holmes, Susan Levy, Christine Mora, Kimberly Neil, Joyce Ortenzio, Mary Pena, and Tami Suematsu.