Carmen Rodriguez

Carmen Rodriguez30s, saline, 1970s, newyork, preroelegalSUMMARY: Carmen Rodriguez, age 31, died July 19, 1970 from an abortion performed in Lincoln Hospital in New York, NY.

“Alice” is one of the women Life Dynamics identifies on their “Blackmun Wall” as having been killed by a safe and legal abortion. I have since identified her from an article in the New York Times: Carmen Rodriguez.

Carmen was 31 years old when she underwent a 14-week saline abortion at Lincoln Hospital in New York City. A saline abortion was performed by injecting a strong, sterile salt solution into the amniotic fluid. The fetus would then swallow and inhale the fluid, causing internal bleeding. After the fetus died, the woman would go into labor.

CarmenRodriguezMarysvilleOHJournalTribune22July1970.png Carmen had a history of rheumatic heart disease and two previous live births. After the saline was injected, it got into Carmen’s blood stream. This caused acute pulmonary edema — fluid accumulation in the lungs — and Carmen went into a coma from which she never recovered. She died on July 19, 1970, leaving behind a husband along with her children.

After Carmen’s death, a militant Puerto Rican group, The Young Lords, swung into action. They pointed out that doctors at Lincoln Hospital knew that Carmen had heart problems and failed to take proper precautions — a very valid claim. After all, saline abortions had long been known to be risky to the woman’s heart. What responsible physician would choose to perform an abortion on a heart patient, using a technique that has been documented as potentially causing heart-damaging electrolyte imbalances?

Community activists also reported that when Carmen had difficulty breathing during the procedure, doctors assumed she was having an asthma attack. Her heart condition, they said, wasn’t listed on her chart, and the treatment provided, appropriate for an asthma patient, could be fatal to a patient with heart problems.

The Young Lords distributed leaflets in the neighborhood of the hospital, denouncing Carmen’s death as “murder”. For 12 hours, the group occupied an administration building connected with the hospital, denouncing the hospital as “a butcher shop that kills patients”.

Merle Goldman, spokeswoman of an abortion advocacy organization, did not share The Young Lords’ outrage. Ms. Goldman said she hoped that Carmen’s death wouldn’t deter other women from undergoing abortions. She touted abortion’s reputed safety and stressed that her group was lobbying against proposed health department regulation of abortion practice.

New York City Chief Medical Examiner Milton Helpern, on the other hand, expressed concern that ill-equipped and poorly-staffed freestanding legal abortion facilities were posing a danger to women. The 1970 liberalization of abortion had made New York an abortion mecca until the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling that abortionists could legally set up shop in any state of the union. In addition to Carmen, these are the women I know of who had the dubious benefit of dying from the newfangled safe-and-legal kind of abortion in pre-Roe New York:

Pearl Schwier, July, 1970, cardiac arrest during abortion
Barbara Riley, July, 1970, sickle-cell crisis triggered by abortion recommended by doctor due to her sickle cell disease
“Amanda” Roe, September, 1970, sent back to her home in Indiana with an untreated hole poked in her uterus
Maria Ortega, October, 1970, fetus shoved through her uterus into her pelvic cavity then left there
“Kimberly” Roe, December, 1970, cardiac arrest during abortion
“Amy” Roe, January, 1971, massive pulmonary embolism
“Andrea” Roe, January, 1971, overwhelming infection
“Sandra” Roe, April, 1971, committed suicide due to post-abortion remorse
“Anita” Roe, May, 1971, bled to death in her home during process of outpatient saline abortion
Margaret Smith, June, 1971, hemorrhage from multiple lacerations during outpatient hysterotomy abortion
“Annie” Roe, June, 1971, cardiac arrest during anesthesia
“Audrey” Roe, July, 1971, cardiac arrest during abortion
“Vicki” Roe, August, 1971, post-abortion infection
“April” Roe, August, 1971, injected with saline for outpatient abortion, went into shock and died
“Barbara” Roe, September, 1971, cardiac arrest after saline injection for abortion
“Tammy” Roe, October, 1971, massive post-abortion infection
Carole Schaner, October, 1971, hemorrhage from multiple lacerations during outpatient hysterotomy abortion
“Beth” Roe, December, 1971, saline injection meant to kill fetus accidentally injected into her bloodstream
“Roseann” Roe, February, 1971, vomiting with seizures causing pneumonia after saline abortion
“Connie” Roe, March, 1972, cardiac arrest during abortion
“Julie” Roe, April, 1972, holes torn in her uterus and bowel
“Robin” Roe, May, 1972, lingering abortion complications
“Roxanne” Roe, May, 1972, given overdose of abortion sedatives
“Danielle” Roe, May, 1972, air in her bloodstream

The deaths listed above are mostly in 1971 because the majority were noted in a report released by the New York health department about abortion deaths from June of 1970 to June of 1972.

As you can see from the graph below, abortion deaths were falling dramatically before legalization. This steep fall had been in place for decades. To argue that legalization lowered abortion mortality simply isn’t supported by the data.

external image Abortion+Deaths+Since+1960.jpg

Sources:

“Maternal Mortality Associated With Legal Abortion in New York State: Jul. 1, 1970 – June 30, 1972,; Berger, Tietze, Pakter, Katz, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 43:3, Mar. 1974, 320
“Abortion Death Reported in City”, New York Times, Jul. 21, 1970;
“Abortion Curbs Put Off by City”, New York Times, Jul. 22, 1970;
“Helpern Upholds Curb on Abortion”, New York Times, Nov.r 8, 1970
“Abortions Prove Fatal to Three N.Y. Women,” The Troy Times Record, Jul. 22, 1970
“Death Linked to Abortion,” Portland Oregonian, Jul. 22, 1970
“The people run a day care center in New York,” Soul City Times (Milwaukee, WI), Aug. 20, 1970

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