Published August, 2000
For the past 27 years, since the legalization of abortion with Roe v. Wade in 1973, supporters of abortion have maintained that it is one of the safest medical surgeries performed today. In fact, they often say abortion is safer than a tonsillectomy.
This is of no consolation to LouAnne Herron who died in April, 1998, after her abortion performed at the A-Z Women’s Center in central Phoenix. Next month, on September 15, the trial of Dr. John Biskind is scheduled to begin. Maricopa County prosecutors hope to prove Dr. Biskind recklessly caused her death. As part of the evidence to be presented in the trial, they also hope to present the cases of three other women injured in abortions performed by Dr. Biskind, one of whom also died.
LouAnne Herron is one of a long list of women who have died as the result of abortions performed legally in the United States. One such woman, Guadalupe Negron, died following her abortion on July 9, 1993, at a Queens, New York, abortion clinic. Like LouAnne Herron, following the abortion the practitioner ignored her for over an hour. When she was finally transported to a nearby hospital, she died a short time later from injuries, including a three-inch rip in her uterus. In 1995, Dr. David Benjamin was convicted of the murder of Ms. Negron.
The upcoming trial of Dr. Biskind should become a focal point for public discussion about the safety of abortion. Many supporters of abortion cite statistics to defend abortion as a safe ‘procedure.’ However, pro-life experts raise serious objections to statistics currently available.
For instance, while death is the ultimate harm to a woman, Guadalupe Negron’s death points to the severe injuries women can suffer during an abortion. Even if a woman survives, as the result of “blind” poking and scraping inside the uterus, she can suffer a torn or punctured uterus, bowel perforations, lacerations to the cervix, and injuries to the urinary tract. Any of these complications can also result in severe blood loss.
Many years later, women may suffer from infertility, ectopic pregnancies, and an inability to carry a pregnancy to term. These conditions can also be linked to injuries to the uterus and cervix caused during an abortion.
Meanwhile, major surgeries are needed to repair these injuries to women, including bowel resections, colostomies, and hysterectomies. While not reflected in the death statistics linked to abortion, these women are definitely casualties of a serious surgery.
Mark Crutcher, president of Life Dynamics, Incorporated, collected and researched over 6,000 documents to prepare his book, LIME 5. He writes an unflinching account of case after case where women were unnecessarily injured or recklessly killed at the hands of abortion providers.
He claims that these cases are but the “tip of the iceberg.” One of the problems in getting full information about such injuries is that women are very reluctant to openly admit to an abortion.
Silence and secrecy are at the heart of the abortion industry. Crutcher describes in detail how the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), helps collect data on abortions and their complications. Of course, the CDC receives reports of injury from the actual doctors and clinics performing the abortions. As the files at Life Dynamics disclose, if the injury can be “handled” by the abortion clinic without sending the woman to a hospital’s emergency room, the injury may never be reported at all.
In fact, former abortionists who have left the industry speak of many such cases where injuries to women were buried in special file cabinets and never reported. Carol Everett is quite candid about her years managing several of the largest abortion clinics in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In her 1992 book Blood Money, she maintains, “The abortions we performed had a high rate of complication. Our clinics completed over 500 abortions monthly, killing or maiming women at a rate of one per month.”
Perhaps the hardest complication of abortion to prove also affects the largest number of women. Like her abortion clients, Carol Everett had an abortion in 1973. When they married, her husband made her promise she would terminate any future pregnancy. Twelve years after her abortion, she finally came to terms with her buried grief and regret.
Pro-abortion forces deny any such syndrome as post-abortion trauma. Meanwhile, many organizations continue to minister to women who claim they are haunted years later by the guilt and hurt associated with their abortions.
Lori Bakker, the new bride of former evangelist Jim Bakker, herself had five abortions before she turned 22. As a result, she was left unable to bear children. Today the Bakkers minister to hundreds of women, helping them to come to a closure with the loss of their aborted child. Post-abortion counseling is also offered nationwide by chapters of Crisis Pregnancy Center.
How safe is abortion? How widespread are the physical complications and emotional suffering from abortion? Perhaps, in September, as Dr. Biskind’s trial begins, we can begin the kind of open social dialogue that gets to the truth. Almost thirty years after abortion was legalized, perhaps it’s time to finally bring abortion out of the shadows. For the sake of women like LouAnne Herron, it is time to talk.
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NOTE: Jane Jimenez sat in court for the entire trial as testimony was given and was present as the verdict was read.
Read: Safe and legal anniversary: Lou Anne Herron. This story is told with accuracy and fidelity to the actual court testimony and transcripts.