Three Equally Dead

On April 16, 1917, 27-year-old homemaker Antonia Gennaro, an Italian immigrant, died at her Chicago home from an abortion perpetrated that day by midwife Minnie Miller. Miller was held by the Coroner that day, and indicted on April 17, but the case never went to trial.

On April 16, 1920, 24-year-old Rose Lieberman died at Chicago's Grant Hospital from a criminal abortion. Dr. Herman J. Webber was arrested, along with Walter Biesse, but they were released. Webber was indicted by a Grand Jury in June, and released on $10,000 bond, but the case never went to trial.

"Julie" was only 14 years old when she underwent an abortion in New York, under their liberalized abortion law, on March 26, 1972. Julie had retained fetal tissue, which doctors tried to remove with additional procedures. During one of these attempts to complete the abortion, Julie's uterus and bowel were perforated. Julie underwent a partial resection of her bowel and drainage of an abscess. But despite these procedures, she developed septicemia and peritonitis, dying on April 16.