On January 8, 1918, 20-year-old newlywed and homemaker Margaret Balch died in a Chicago home from hemorrhage caused by an abortion perpetrated by a person who was never identified.
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.
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