My primary information about abortion deaths for this time and place are through coroner records. Interestingly, the Pittsburgh area's abortion culture seemed to lean toward self-induced abortions despite the presence of physician-abortionists.
On January 28, 1918, 27-year-old Annabella Lewis, a homemaker, died in at West Penn Hospital in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The autopsy concluded that she had performed a self-induced abortion using slippery elm bark. She had told her husband, Albert, about the abortion, but had denied even being ill to anybody else until her admission to the hospital.
According to census records, Annabella and her husband had a son, Joseph, who would have been about ten years old at the time of her death. She was a native of Pennsylvania.
Watch Slippery Elm in Pittsburgh on YouTube.
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