Monday, January 26, 2015

Two Criminal, Two Safe-n-Legal, All Dead

On January 26, 1920, 24-year-old Lydia Swanson died at Chicago'sPost Graduate Hospital from an abortion perpetrated by Dr. Rosa GollnickLydia had developed septic inflammation of both lungs. Gollnick was arrested on January 27 and went to trial, but was acquitted on June 18.

Twenty-six-year-old Lucy Sanchez and her roommate, Clara Thornton, were both pregnant in January of 1956. After asking around they found an abortionist named Lois Brown. They met with Brown on January 18. Clara was about three months pregnant; Lucy was around six months. Only Clara had the money that day, $100 she had borrowed from Lucy, so Brown took Clara and sent Lucy home. Brown used a syringe to inject Clara with a solution which looked and smelled like Lifebouy soap. Clara suffered alarming complications that evening, and Brown came to her home. After attending to Clara, Brown pressured Lucy to come up with the money to have an abortion as well. On January 26, Clara repaid Lucy the $100. Brown came to their home to take Lucy for the abortion. That evening, Brown went to Clara's workplace, telling her to come and fetch Lucy because she was suffering from complications and her moans were disturbing the neighbors. When Clara arrived house, Lucy was lying on a couch amid bloody newspapers and covered with a blood blanket and bedspread. Clara helped Brown carry Lucy down to the car, and they drove her to a hospital. As they sat outside the emergency room Brown told Clara "she knew she shouldn't have done it, and took out her wallet, took out $30 and gave it to me and said those $30 were to help me in case Lucy needed anything." But Lucy was beyond needing any help. A doctor came out and informed the three women that Lucy had been dead on arrival. She had bled to death from a blunt injury to a uterine blood vessel. Brown was placed on trial and was found guilty of both abortions -- Lucy's and Clara's -- and of the murder of Lucy. 

Ingar Weber, age 28, died January 26, 1990, in a Louisiana hospital. She had been treated for acute kidney failure after a safe and legal abortion performed at Delta Women's Clinic in Baton Rouge on January 20, 1990. Ingar's family sued the clinic and its doctors, Richardson P. Glidden and Thomas Booker. They faulted the doctors with failing to diagnose Ingar's kidney problems, or her deteriorating physical condition, before, during, or after the abortion. Delta had also been sued following the death of another abortion patient. This woman was most likely 27-year-old Sheila Hebert, who died after an abortion on June 6, 1984.

On January 22, 2001, 19-year-old Melissa Heim went to Access Health Center in Downers Grove, Illinois.She was given "twilight anesthesia" with a drug cocktail including Versed, Fentanyl, and Brevital for a safe, legal abortionAfter the abortion, she was moved to the recovery area, where she went into cardio-respiratory arrest about half an hour later. An ambulance was summoned, and Melissa was resuscitated by the paramedics, but due to the brain injury she had suffered, she died on January 26. Her survivors filed suit against Access, doctors Victor Espinosa and Alfonso Del Granado, and nurse Pat Hurt, holding that they had failed to monitor Melissa properly in recovery and failed to resuscitate her quickly enough to save her life.

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