"Since 1973, there has been no legal requirement for physicians to report maternal abortion deaths and complications. Most states report incomplete data, and the Centers for Disease Control, which compile and summarize the information, receive only sketchy numbers from California, Texas, Florida and Illinois which between them account for more than half a million abortions annually which is one-third of the nation's total."

"Doctors themselves admit that physicians who perform large numbers of abortions are virtual pariahs within their own profession. When a maternal abortion death does occur, it will naturally reflect discredit not only upon the guilty abortionist, but upon the pro-abortion movement and on the medical profession in general. In many cases, maternal abortion deaths only come to light when a relative of the deceased woman takes legal action."

"As an example of reasons for this prevalent degree of under-reporting, the State of California reported no abortion deaths at all in 1983 and 1984.[19] However, at least four women Patricia Chacon, Inez Herron, Cora Mae Lewis, and Yvonne Tanner died of abortion-related complications in California during those years"

"Many women who obtain abortions are ashamed or embarrassed by the circumstances under which they got pregnant and/or by the act of killing their preborn child. Therefore, about one-third of all women obtaining abortions cross state lines or travel to another city in order to maintain anonymity.
If such a woman returns to her home town and then dies of abortion-related complications after several hours or days, her death is extremely difficult to trace if no family member or friends know that she obtained an abortion, or where such an abortion occurred."

"According to the United States Bureau of Vital Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control, the last time 1,000 women died of illegal abortions in the United States was in the year before penicillin became widely available to the public in 1942. In the ten years preceding Roe v. Wade, deaths ranged from 90 to 150 per year.