Tuesday, February 15, 2011

1925: Dr. Lucy Hagenow strikes again

On February 15, 1925, Nina H. Pierce, a 22-year-old white woman, died at the Chicago Lying-In Hospital from complications of a criminal abortion believed to have been performed that day by Dr. Lucy Hagenow.

Hagenow was arrested the day Nina died, at the crime scene, as was Nina's husband, Logan Pierce.

Both of them were exonerated by the coroner on March 5, 1925. But on June 10, Hagenow was held to a Grand Jury on $25,000 bond, and Pierce released, by Judge Schulman.

Other Chicago abortion deaths attributed to Dr. Lucy Hagenow, aka Dr. Louise Hagenow, aka Dr. Ida Von Schultz, include:

  • 1899: Marie Hecht
  • 1906: Lola Madison
  • 1907: Annie Horvatich
  • 1925: Lottie Lowy, Jean Cohen, Bridget Masterson, and Elizabeth Welter
  • 1926: Mary Moorehead

    Hagenow was typical of criminal abortionists in that she was a physician.

    Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. For more about abortion in this era, see Abortion in the 1920s.

    For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion Sources:
  • Homicide in Chicago Interactive
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