Abortion Deaths
One perhaps surprisingly common manner for women to die during the 1900s was due to botched abortions. These are not always identified as "death by abortion," but can often be identified because the cause of death was peritonitis, the common cause of death in abortion cases. Other cases are more clearly identified as abortion deaths, often because the dying woman admitted it.
1898
A 1-day-old white male was murdered by his mother shortly after she gave birth to him. She threw the baby into a cesspool behind her house, her father recovered the body a while later. 189801_221
AP 25 April 08
1901
Case 190109_185 details the death of a 23-year-old woman who received a criminal abortion, and then died due to complications about a week afterward. Apparently, the doctor that performed the abortions had blackmailed previous patients to keep quiet, and an anonymous letter is contained in the file tipping off the coroner to these charges of blackmail and cover-up with the death of the 23-year-old woman.
1918
A 27 year old married woman used a stick of "slippery elm" to induce an abortion, which also caused her death by Septic peritonitis following that abortion. She had told her husband that she had given herself an abortion, but told everyone else she was well until she was confined to her bed and eventually taken to the hospital.
191801-333
AFS 11 June 2008
In August, a 24-year-old woman died from toxemia at West Penn Hospital from a self-inflicted abortion using a stick of slippery elm. She had lost the stick inside her and eventually had it removed by a doctor. She had been 2 months pregnant. Her decision was based upon the fear that her husband would be taken to war and leave her with 2 children, and she wouldn't be able to support them. 191808_257.
RLM 06 Jul 08
1929
Case file 192906_125 was initially thought to be a stillborn fetus; when the mother was questioned, however, a disturbing illegal business was discovered. The 18-year-old girl confessed to paying a woman and her husband $50 to perform an abortion. Upon further investigation, the police discovered that the couple was responsible for about 30 criminal abortions in a little over a year. As if this was not enough, for a fee of $2 a second man would bury the fetus in a fresh grave at Monongahela Cemetery.
ZB 27 Sept 2007
1930-1931
Case file 193012_271 involved a woman who died due to bichloride of mercury poisoning. She had been given a box of tablets labeled: "Dr. Pierce's Golden Metal [or Medal?] Capsules" to cause an abortion when inserted vaginally. The tablet caused severe chemical burns to the area of application and tissue necrosis throughout her body. There were also chemical burns along her esophagus and mouth caused by repeated vomiting of blood, so the amount of bichloride of mercury she ingested must have been very large. It appears, reading between the lines, that she had been the mistress of the man who gave her the tablets, and her husband had been acting as her pimp, collecting money for the services.
There was another death some months later, 193108_88, which was officially ruled a suicide. The 22-years-old unmarried woman, however, was reported to have been in "good spirits" and told someone that she would return. She was found, suffering from bichloride of mercury poison, and admitted taking the tablet but refused to say why. I suspect that she took bichloride of mercury intending to cause an abortion, but not to take her own life.
BB 09 Oct 2007
One file, number is 193106_228, was an abortion death due to peritonitis. This file included testimony from the victim's boyfriend describing how he arranged the abortion and the details of the procedure. While most abortion deaths I have noticed involved slippery elm bark, this one was due to a rubber catheter. The testimony was a good way to learn how people in the 1930s got abortions, which were illegal at the time.
SH 10 Oct 2007
1933
A 26 year-old married woman died at home from septicemia following a self-induced abortion, or as noted by the doctor, "an interrupted gestation." Apparently she had been pregnant for 2 months and had taken a mustard sponge bath, which caused her to bleed and experience sharp pains in her chest and lower abdomen. Her husband said that he had known of the pregnancy but not of any plans for an abortion. Septicemia, the clinical name for blood poisoning, has been noted in several cases as the official cause of death in obvious instances of abortion. 193301_216.
2008 May 26 RLM
1938-1940
A 21 year-old married woman died at St. John's General Hospital from a septic embolism, due to a self-induced abortion. A testimony given by a friend stated that the deceased had confided in her a month before her death, revealing that she had "used a bobby pin on herself" and punctured herself in two places. Swelling formed in her abdomen, for which she was given medicine by a doctor, resulting in violent bowel movements. She then developed a pelvic infection from her abortion attempt, for which she was taken to the hospital, treated, and sent home to rest. On July 4 she was found lying unconscious in her bathroom and again taken to the hospital, where she died 4 days later. 193807_084.
There are numerous instances of young women, often married, who subjected themselves to unbelievable pain and bodily danger in order to abort pregnancies. These acts of desperation, at a time when abortions were highly illegal, are so difficult to encounter for the realities they reveal. We cannot say for certain why these abortions were committed, but the reality was that it was often too costly to have a child . . . tragically, it would sometimes cost a woman her life.
2008 May 26 RLM
Case file 193912_260 reveals some additional techniques use for abortions. In this case "ginger root powder and 18 Aelephant pills" were given to a woman, and then a "cathara" was used on her by an unlicensed doctor known as "Doc Loving."
BB 23 Oct 2007
1940-1941
I have seen a drop in the number of abortion deaths in the files I have processed lately. Either the techniques are getting better, less people are getting abortions, or some other factor unknown to us is at work here. I am curious as to how the abortion deaths were affected by the Great Depression. Since many records from that era were destroyed, however, we may never know.
SH 28 Oct 2007
1956
Case file 195602_169 is that of an aborted fetus of a woman five and a half to six months pregnant. According to the file this was the last of six or seven attempts made by this woman to terminate her pregnancy. I do not believe there was any mention in this file of the mother's health following these procedures, but she must have experienced some amount of trauma. The details of this file are certainly disturbing considering how far along this woman was in her pregnancy, the number of attempts, and the overall picture they provide of the circumstances women felt subjected to and the actions they resorted to as a result of abortion being criminal.
TG 21 Jan 2008
1958
An 18-year-old woman from South Carolina moved to Pittsburgh to live with relatives and try to get a job. Three weeks later, she was admitted to the hospital for a high fever. Upon examination, the doctors found a catheter in her womb. None of her relatives knew she was pregnant. After some interrogation by the doctors, she finally admitted she was pregnant. The fetus was ejected from the womb some time later, and the girl gave the police information as to who performed the abortion. She died in the hospital of septicemia and acute bilateral lobar pneumonia soon after. (195812_48)
LB 01 Feb 2008
1960
A 23-year-old woman died from acute superlative peritonitis and Septicemia following an abortion. Her family and boyfriend denied knowledge of the abortion. She had the abortion a little under a month before her death. She also had another child, a 5-year-old girl. 196001_55
AP 15 Feb 2008
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