A tragic Independence Day

On July 4, 1913, 33-year-old Mary Goldstein died in Chicago from an abortion perpetrated by Minnie Bernstein.

Bernstein is identified only as "abortion provider", so she might have been a lay abortionist.

She was held by the Coroner, and indicted by the Grand Jury for felony murder on September 1, but the case never went to trial.

Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

In fact, due to improvements in addressing these problems, maternal mortality in general (and abortion mortality with it) fell dramatically in the 20th Century, decades before Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion across America.

For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see Abortion Deaths 1910-1919.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion