July 9, 1916: An Unknown Chicago Perpetrator

On July 9, 1916, 27-year-old homemaker Mina Dryfus Mallett died at Chicago's Washington Park Hospital from complications of a abortion performed that day by an unknown perpetrator. Given the plethora of physicians and midwives practicing abortion in Chicago at the time, it's likely that she availed herself of one of them.

Mina had been born in Virginia on January 21, 1889 to Jacob Dryfus, a German immigrant, and his wife, Fannie H., nee Robinson.

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.

Sources:

• Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database
• death certificate
• untitled snippet, The Day Book, Jul. 11, 1916