Bell v. Supreme Court

Becky Bell was a 17-year old Indiana girl who reportedly died of an illegal abortion on September 16, 1988. "Pro-choice" and Feminist organizations, especially Planned Parenthood and Eleanor Smeal's "Feminist Majority Fund," immediately seized on Becky Bell's death and stated as fact that it was directly caused by Indiana's parental consent laws. This received a lot of media attention for awhile, until the National Right to Life Committee got a copy of the post-mortem report, which showed no sign of either induced abortion or infection in or near the reproductive organs. What the report did show was that Becky Bell died of a deadly and fast-acting form of pneumonia. Various doctors have confirmed that Becky Bell did not die from an induced abortion. The physician who personally examined Becky's body, Dr. John Pless, at Indiana University Medical Center, stated that "I cannot prove she had an illegal abortion. I cannot prove she had anything but a spontaneous abortion or a miscarriage." Less than six months after Becky Bell's death, Erica Richardson, a Maryland sixteen-year-old, died from a legal abortion. Erica underwent the abortion without her parents' knowledge or consent. It is a tragedy that Becky Bell died, but is also a tragedy when the pro-choice movement purposely lies and exploits her death to further their own agenda.