Two Criminal Deaths

On November 12, 1917, 22-year-old Mrs. M. Linstrom died at Chicago's American Hospital from an abortion perpetrated by Dr. Anna Sorenson, who was indicted and released. Sorenson had performed the fatal abortion on Emelia Gorman earlier that year, and went on to kill Margaret Crowe in January of the following year. Her chain of death ended with her own death in prison while awaiting trial after her January 15, 1918 arrest.

On November 3, 1952, Isabell Cuda went to the home of Mary Murawsky in Rockford, Illinois, for an illegal abortion. Mary was neither licensed nor qualified to practice medicine. Murawsky used some sort of instrument on Isabell. Isabell became ill, and died on November 12, leaving behind a husband and a minor child. (Those who are prone to get on the "back alley butcher" bandwagon are reminded of what went on at Kermit Gosnell's purportedly safe, legal abortion clinic. Isabell knew she was going to a layperson. The patients at Gosnell's clinic thought they were getting doctors. You'll never convince me that the second scenario is in any way superior.)

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