The widower of a Wisconsin teacher killed in a safe, legal abortion has filed suit against the hospital training the resident who did the procedure.
Linda May Boom, age 35, went to Sinai Samaritan Medical Center in Milwaukee for an abortion on September 21, 1995.
Linda and her husband, Dennis Boom, had married in 1993 and planned to start a family. Linda learned that she was pregnant in June of 1995, but in September elected abortion because the fetus had been diagnosed with Down Syndrome. Linda’s aunt had Down Syndrome, which Linda believed meant “no life.”
Fourth-year resident Karen S. Watson administered an amnioinfusion. Linda reported pain and said she was “burning up all over.” This is consistent with what a woman might experience during a botched saline abortion.
Watson’s supervising physician, Daniel Gilman, injected more chemicals into Linda’s uterus. Dennis Boom’s attorney, Patrick Dunphy, said that the two injections caused the heart damage that killed Linda 36 hours after the first injection.