Two Beneficiaries of Safety and Legality

Twenty-year-old LaSandra Russ, from Berkley, California, went to Los Angeles to have an abortion on December 13, 1971. She was six weeks pregnant. The abortion was performed at Memorial Hospital of Hawthorne the next day, December 14. LaSandra went into cardiac arrest almost immediately after the abortion. Attempts were made to revive her, but she was finally pronounced dead on December 15, 1971.

Abortionist Andre Nehorayoff was disciplined over the abortion death of a patient identified by the medical board as "Patient F." Since other accounts of her death refer to her as "Faye Roe," I will use this pseudonym as well.

Faye was 19 years old when she went to Nehorayoff's office for a safe and legal abortion on December 15, 1979, for an abortion. Nehorayoff failed to record an adequate history or medical exam for Faye. Nehorayoff left Faye in a recovery room at 2:25 p.m., without any monitoring. When somebody finally checked on her an hour later, she was cyanotic (blue) and had no pulse. She was pronounced dead at a hospital. Nehorayoff was also disciplined regarding Patient E, an 18-year-old patient who bled to death after Nehorayoff sent her home in 1983 with a fetal leg still in her uterus. Nehorayoff's other cases are described here.