"While you're here," and three other fatal abortion cases

During early 1861, Caroline Malinken, age 35, approached Dr. John H. Joecken, who was caring for her ailing husband in their Brooklyn home, about an abortion. "The doctor replied that it was the easiest thing imaginable, and that in eight days all would be over." Joecken set to work on Caroline, "and by the use of drugs as well as instruments succeeded in making her very sick." Over the course of several days her condition deteriorated. She died late Monday night, February 11.

On February 11, 1916, 42-year-old Eva Krakonowicz died in her Chicago home from an abortion perpetrated that day by midwife Agnes Dzugas. Dzugas was held by the coroner and indicted by a Grand Jury on February 1, but the case never went to trial.

Dawn Ravenell's parents didn't even know their 13-year-old daughter was pregnant until they got a phone call from St. Luke's hospital telling them that she was 'fighting for her life." A school counselor had arranged the secret abortion, which Dawn's 15-year-old boyfriend paid for with a credit card borrowed from a relative. When Dawn began to vomit and choke during the procedure, Dr. Alan Kline put a breathing tube in and shunted her off to the recovery room, where she was left unattended for over an hour. She died on February 11, 1985, without ever regaining consciousness.

DaNette Pergusson, a 19-year-old medical assistant, submitted to a safe, legal abortion on February 11, 1992, at the hands of Robert Tarnis of Phoenix, Arizona. During the abortion, DaNette stopped breathing, and paramedics were summoned. The Maricopa County deputy medical examiner determined that DaNette died from a pulmonary embolism.