Rita McDowell

Rita McDowellteens, 1970s, infectionSUMMARY: Rita McDowell, age 16, died March 7, 1975 after an abortion performed by Robert Sherman at Columbia Family Planning Clinic in Washington, DC.

Sixteen-year-old Rita McDowell was the daughter of Lupe McDowell, Ethel Kennedy’s part-time housekeeper.

On March 4, 1975, Robert Julius Sherman performed a safe and legal abortion on Rita, who was in the second trimester of her pregnancy. Rather than admit her to the hospital for the then-standard saline abortion, Sherman performed a vacuum aspiration abortion usually used for first trimester abortions. When Rita was discharged, her mother was informed that she would probably expel the fetus that night. As they left the office, Rita told her mother, “Oh, Mama, I feel like I had one hundred needles in me.”

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 macerated fetus, but she died from massive infection 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.

Testimony during his trial indicated that Sherman would send patients home with green plastic trash bags to collect fetuses that they expelled at home after their incomplete abortions.

Three patients also testified against Sherman. One testified that when she reported feeling nauseous and faint after the abortion, Sherman told her to go outside and get some fresh air. Sherman discharged her telling her that the abortion was complete, but she’d ended up having to undergo a second procedure at a hospital. Another testified about the “small, shabby room” that Sherman did abortions in at his clinic.

In affidavits filed in the McDowell case, Sherman and his Columbia Family Planning Clinic included employees noting unsanitary conditions, including rusting instruments. A doctor who had done several abortions there said that Sherman used suction canulas that were too small and “would end the procedure after an obviously cursory attempt to empty the contents of the uterus.”

Many of Sherman’s patients were Medicaid patients, for whom Sherman received over $77,000 in payments in 1975 alone. In 55 cases, those patients had to return for additional treatment following incomplete abortions.

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 ever practicing medicine again. Sherman served two years in a federal prison, then set up a legal abortion practice in Boston.

Sherman had shown signs that he was trouble before Rita’s death. People noted that he “had already been expelled from the local gynecological society, reprimanded and censured by the area’s medical society, and recommended for disciplinary action by the OB-GYN department of the Washington Hospital Center.”

An article in the September 11, 1976 Panama City News-Herald indicated that since 1967, Sherman had been sued for malpractice more than a dozen times. Three of those cases involved the deaths of patients. I have been unable to determine if those other deaths were abortion cases.

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:

“License to Kill?” People, Jul. 21, 1982
New York Times, 10/6/82
Robert J. Sherman vs. Ambassador Insurance Company, Dec. 15, 1981
“Convicted Doctor Fights for License,” New York Times, Oct. 6, 1982
“Abortionist Sued,” Panama City (FL) News-Herald, Sept. 11, 1976
“Sherman Given Jail Sentence For Perjury at Abortion Trial,” Washington Post, Jul. 11, 1979
“3 Sherman Abortion Patients to Counter Testimony,” Washington Post, Dec. 5, 1978

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Rita McDowell