News

By Hilary White

  CHICAGO, March 20, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A convicted felon and abortionist responsible for the deaths of at least two women has been hired at a Chicago public school as the new principal. A spokesman from Mildred I. Lavizzo School in the greater Roseland area told a pro-life advocate that the Lavizzo school council were apprised of the full background of their new principal, Dr. Arnold Bickham.   

  Jill Stanek, a Chicago area pro-life activist and nurse posted a letter on her website from an 8th grader at the school, who said that students and teachers “aren’t comfortable with being around him and we want help. If he has this kind of back ground (sic) he shouldn’t be able to work in this type of organization because you’ll never know what he will try to do.”

  Bickham’s days as an abortionist were ended in 1988 when the state permanently revoked his medical license after the death of a patient, Sylvia Moore, but his criminal conviction was for defrauding government job-training funds to cover his abortion facility payroll. Bickham’s license was revoked in 1970 after it was revealed he was attempting abortions on women who were not pregnant. 

  Two women, 26 year-old Sherry Emry and 18 year-old Sylvia Moore underwent abortions at Bickham’s hands at his Water Tower Reproductive Center in Chicago; both died of complications. Emry bled to death from an undetected ectopic pregnancy and Moore with a lacerated uterus that still had a plastic surgical instrument embedded in it.

  Bickham was sued by patients several times for malpractice for infection, internal injuries, perforated uterus, and hemorrhage.

  Stanek said she spoke with Chicago Public Schools spokesman, Mike Vaughn, who told her, “I did confirm with the law department that the crimes he was convicted of were not enumerated offenses that state school code lists as prohibiting someone from working for the school district”.