On March 21, 1911, 33-year-old homemaker Katherine "Kate" Kammer died of septic peritonitis at German Hospital in Chicago from an abortion perpetrated by a "midwife" around 5 days earlier.
For reasons not given in the source document, there was never any prosecution for Kate's death.Kate, who had immigrated from Hungary in1904, was the daughter of Mike Tomaski and the wife of Dammick Kammer, who worked as a bricklayer. She had two sons, an 8-year-old and a toddler.
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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. 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
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