Who's to blame when aborting women die?

Whose fault is it when aborting women die? It depends, according to abortion proponents. If the abortion was illegal, we are. If the abortion was legal, she is.

Cases in point, yesteryear's illegal abortion of Gerri Santoro and this year's legal abortion of Edrica Goode.

You've likely seen the haunting, iconic photo of Gerri Santoro, dead, naked, knees to chest with bloody bottom in the air on a hotel room floor, the result of an illegal abortion in 1964 at age 27.

How did Santoro get there? At six and a half months pregnant by a married man, Santoro apparently panicked when learning her own abusive husband, whom she had left but not divorced, was traveling from out-of-state to visit their two daughters.

Santoro and her baby's father checked into a hotel, where he tried aborting her using a textbook and borrowed surgical instruments. When Santoro began hemorrhaging, he fled.

Ms. Magazine called Santoro a "victim" of "butchery" by an "unskilled abortionist."

(Speaking of victims, Ms. Magazine published the police photo of Santoro in 1973 without the family's permission. Her daughters thought she died in a car accident until then.)

Former abortion mill director Marcy Bloom blogged, "In death, she became a symbol for the struggle and necessity for safe and legal abortion. … [S]he would have been 72 years old this year if the bigotry and ignorance of the anti-abortion laws and attitudes of her time had not abandoned her and left her to die."

(Santoro's married boyfriend didn't abandon her; we did.)

Blogger Rampaging PMS eulogized, "Not having access to safe, legal abortions took two lives that day, rather than the only one the anti-abortionists care about."

(Care to explain who else died that day besides Gerri, PMS? Oh, never mind.)

Flash forward 34 years to these sunny days of safe, legal abortions.

On Feb. 14, 2007, 21-year-old Edrica Goode became the third woman in four years to die after an abortion at a California mill.

On Jan. 31, a Riverside Planned Parenthood nurse practitioner (note, non-physician) started a late-term abortion on Goode. She inserted seaweed sticks called laminaria to dilate Goode's cervix, despite finding an "odiferous creamy-colored discharge" indicative of infection, according to a lawsuit Goode's mother, Aletheia Meloncon, filed last week.

Goode was to return to Planned Parenthood the next day to have the laminaria removed and complete the abortion. It is unclear whether Goode misunderstood the instructions or became disoriented and unable to follow them.

According to the Los Angeles Times, "Goode began to experience fevers and started vomiting, Meloncon said. She became mentally unstable, not knowing what the day was and acting aggressively."

Meloncon, not knowing Goode was undergoing an abortion, took Goode to Riverside County Hospital Feb. 4. Goode tested pregnant, but hospital staff refused to perform a gynecological exam because Goode, disoriented and combative, refused it.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood says it sent Goode two letters telling her to return, although Meloncon never received them.

Riverside Hospital bounced Edrica from a medical floor to a psych ward and back before finally discovering the laminaria Feb. 13. Too late. Goode died of toxic shock syndrome Feb. 14.

Now Meloncon is suing Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties and Riverside County Hospital for malpractice.

The reaction of pro-aborts to Goode's death? From the standard bearers – Ms. Magazine, PP, NARAL, National Abortion Federation – nothing. No outcry for safer, more regulated abortions.

From abortion apologists?

According to blogger World Wide Rant, "Edrica Goode died because of her own willful negligence or general stupidity."

Blogger Spartakus called Meloncon's attorney "quite the ambulance chaser" and said his complaint that PP didn't file a legally required report was "grandstanding."

Some comments on my blog:

"That woman had access to a clean, safe abortion, and yet chose to go way out of her way to get an infection and die."

"She knew what to do and chose not to do it. It was suicide."

"She was an adult who chose to ignore medical advice and refused treatment until it was too late. This is America. If she chose that path, what was Planned Parenthood supposed to do? Track the signal from her radio collar, fire a tranquilizer dart into her a--, chase her till she dropped and treat her by force?"

"It sounds like the mother, the only person answering questions, may be conflating the autopsy findings."

"How can you pro-lifers be so shameless as to use the untimely death of another as baseless political capital?"

Two women died of late-term abortions. Pro-lifers mourn all four lives lost. Pro-aborts mourn only the one that furthers their agenda and trivialize or ridicule the others.

Just more evidence they don't care about women, just abortion.

Related special offer:

"ENDING ABORTION: How the pro-life side will win the war"