Rosa Roe1970s, 20s, illegalpostroe, infectionSUMMARY: “Rosa,” age 29, died in 1976 from complications of an illegal abortion most likely perpetrated in Mexico.

Legalization did not end illegal abortion. For reasons of their own, women still choose criminal abortions even though legal abortions are available to them.

The CDC’s 1976 Abortion Surveillance Summary presents the case of a woman I’ll call “Rosa.”
Rosa was married, 29 years old, with two living children. According to her family, she had previously undergone an illegal abortion in Mexico in 1968.

When she was 10 weeks pregnant, she returned to Mexico for another illegal abortion. The CDC reports that her family attributed her choice of an illegal abortionist to “cultural familiarity.”

A midwife inserted a catheter into Rosa’s uterus one day, and removed it the next. Rosa experienced cramping and bleeding, and passed fetal parts. That evening her husband noticed that she was jaundiced.

Over the next three days, Rosa suffered from nausea, vomiting, and poor appetite. She was admitted to a hospital. Doctors there diagnosed her with an e. coli infection. Over the next 24 hours she developed renal failure and disseminated intravascular coagulopathy. The doctors performed surgery to remove her grossly infected uterus.

Rosa’s condition improved over the next four days, except for her kidneys. She was transferred to another hospital for dialysis, but she suffered cardiac arrest and could not be resuscitated.

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.

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1. 1900s
2. 1910-1919
3. 1920s
4. 1930s
5. 1940s
6. 1950s
7. 1960s
8. 1970s
9. 1980s
10. 1990s
11. 19th century
12. 2000-2009
13. 20s
14. 30s
15. 40s
16. NAF
17. abortifacient
18. abortion
19. abortion mill
20. abortion mortality
21. abortionists
22. abortionists — female
23. abortionists — male
24. alabama
25. anesthesia
26. arizona
27. black women
28. botched abortion
29. california
30. chicago
31. colorado
32. connecticut
33. cover-up
34. death
35. deaths
36. deception
37. delay in transport
38. delay in treatment
39. district of columbia
40. dumped body
41. ectopic
42. embolism
43. falsifying forms
44. fetal indications
45. florida
46. former criminal abortionist
47. george tiller
48. georgia
49. hemorrhage death
50. hospitals
51. illegal – doctor
52. illegal – midwife
53. illegal – nurse
54. illegal – paramedical
55. illegal – post roe
56. illegal – unknown
57. illegal – untrained
58. illegal abortion
59. illinois
60. inadequate documents
61. inadequate equipment
62. inadequate resuscitation
63. incomplete abortion
64. indiana
65. infection
66. kansas
67. legal abortion
68. llinois
69. louisiana
70. maryland
71. massachusetts
72. maternal indications
73. maternal mortality
74. michigan
75. mills
76. missouri
77. mortality
78. national abortion federation
79. new jersey
80. new mexico
81. new york
82. north carolina
83. ohio
84. oklahoma
85. pennsylvania
86. planned parenthood
87. pre-roe legal
88. previous misconduct
89. prostaglandin
90. quackery
91. questionable stories
92. ru-486
93. rupture
94. saline
95. secret abortion
96. self-induced
97. suicide
98. teens
99. texas
100. wisconsin