ARTICLES

Abortion Victim Found In TJ Dump

LEADS INCONCLUSIVE

By Bob McPhail

Shortly before 11 a.m. on Thursday, February 22, the telephone rang in the district attorney's office in Tijuana. Workers at the city dump in Colonia Flores Magon reported they had found what they believed was a dead baby among the trash. A deputy coroner drove to the dump at 11 a.m. Television news later showed the coroner wearing rubber gloves, gingerly lifting the dead child from the rubble as scores of onlookers stood on garbage mounds nearby.

The corners took the dead baby to the medical examiner's office on Boulevard Fundadores, where a post mortem revealed the unborn boy at three to four months gestation, victim of an abortion.

The district attorney's office had nothing official to report as of mid-March. One investigator said lot numbers from medical waste found near the fetus's body -- including discarded IV bags, gauze boxes, and medicine packages -- were being used as clues to find the abortionist. Some of the lot numbers led to a federal Social Security clinic and others to a doctor's office on First Street (Calle Primera) in Zona Norte.

Short of a confession, the state judicial police investigator said there is no way to connect the medical detritus to the abortion, since tons of garbage are disposed of each day at the dump. Amado Gallardo, spokesman for the medical examiner's office, said the baby's body will remain at the morgue until the investigation is done; then the district attorney will have the child buried. Of the abortion victim's discovery, Gallardo said, "It has been at least one year since this has happened before."

A pharmacist whose office lies near the suspect doctor in Zona Norte admitted, "Before when it was illegal in the United States, I received several inquiries every day from American women seeking abortions in Tijuana. Now the women who come in are Mexican and want to know if I can refer them to a doctor in the United States. It is still possible to have an abortion in Tijuana, but it is illegal and the circumstances are not always the best." He said an abortion in Tijuana today costs about $150.