On April 2, 1924, 26-year-old Miss Mary Whitney underwent an abortion at the Chicago office of Dr. Lou E. Davis. On May 18, Mary died at St. Mary's Hospital of complications of that abortion. Dr. Davis was held by the coroner on May 19, but evidently wasn't held long enough because she performed a fatal abortion on Anna Borndal four years later.
Mary's abortion was typical of criminal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
On May 18, 1925, Della Davis, a 25-year-old Black woman, died in Chicago from an illegal abortion performed that day. The person responsible for her death was never caught.
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
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