Twenty-five-year-old Dorothy, a nurse, had recently immigrated to the Chicago area from Zimbabwe. A jouralist’s notes after her death tell the following story:
Dorothy went to Women’s Aid Clinic for a safe and legal abortion on June 15, 1974. The fetus didn’t die, however, and Dorothy returned to the clinic on August 21 to report her symptoms. Staff told her to return the following day.
On August 22, Dorothy again returned to Women’s Aid, bleeding and in pain. David Turow examined Dorothy, diagnosed an infection, and sent her home with prescriptions for tetracycline to control the infection and ergonovine to control the bleeding.
Dorothy’s husband said that he awoke at around 6:00 on the morning of August 23 to find his wife bleeding profusely. Dorothy assured him that she was just menstruating, so he left for school. When he returned home, he was alarmed by Dorothy’s bleeding and called an ambulance.
Dorothy was rushed to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival shortly after noon. Only after her death did her husband, a theology student, learn of the pregnancy and abortion.
A witness in Dorothy’s apartment described the bedroom as “wall to wall blood.” He found the fetus in a waste basket and put it in the refrigerator for safekeeping.
The coroner ruled Dorothy’s death from hemorrhage accidental.
Source: Kevin Sherlock’s 1991 Abortion Death Log
Credit: Christina Dunigan
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