Saturday, May 21, 2011

A death only noted in passing

Little is known about Sharon Margrove, but on May 21, 1970, she died following a safe and legal abortion in Los Angeles County, California. She was 25 years old.
Link
Though I'll point out -- and some people were unaware of this -- that even though this was before Roe vs Wade, Sharon's abortion was of the safe-n-legal variety. New York and California had both legalized abortion on demand in 1970, though New York allowed any doctor to practice abortion anywhere (so you ended up with situations like Jesse Ketchum running an abortion practice in a motel suite in Buffalo), whereas California required abortions to be performed in hospitals (so you ended up with a crop of nasty abortion hospitals springing up like mushrooms).

That second point -- about California abortions being done in hospitals between state legalization and Roe striking down the inpatient requirement -- is important. Abortion defenders love to point to California and say that hospital admissions for abortion complications dropped dramatically after legalization in 1970. Well, DUH! The women were already in the hospital! They didn't have to be admitted to be treated, because they were already there.

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