Dawn

Women who have died : Dawn

Dawn Ravenell, a 13-year-old girl, died after she underwent an abortion at the hands of Allen Klein at Eastern Women's Center in New York City on January 24th 1985. Five minutes into the abortion, Dawn started vomiting and choking. Klein, who was commuting from Philadelphia to perform abortions at the Eastern Women's Center facility, inserted a breathing tube into her windpipe and moved her to a recovery room.

She started choking again, then suffered a massive heart attack before any staff at the facility checked on her again. She slipped into a coma at the facility, then died three weeks later in a nearby hospital without ever regaining consciousness. Dawn's parents, both Pentecostal ministers, first heard their daughter was pregnant when they got word she was in a coma.

Ruth Ravenell said her daughter probably sought the abortion instead of telling her because "I think that she felt for me to see her as less than perfect would have been too much." Ruth and her husband sued Klein and the facility over Dawn's death, and a Manhattan jury awarded them $1.2million in damages in December 1990.

The sources for this summary are an article in the New York Post on 11th December 1990 and an article on AP Wire Service on 11th December 1990.

Dawn

Women who have died : Dawn

Abortion Effects