RealChoice: April 15, 1930: "Circumstances Suggesting Judicial Corruption"

Wednesday, April 15, 2026

April 15, 1930: "Circumstances Suggesting Judicial Corruption"

SUMMARY AND CONTEXT: Frances Collins, age 34, died May 6, 1920 after an abortion reportedly perpetrated by Dr. Warner. This story highlights a seldom-addressed reality: Most pre-legalization abortions were perpetrated physicians or trained medical professionals, not the woman or some amateur.

Mary Calderone

As then-Planned Parenthood Federation medical director Mary Calderone estimated in the July, 1960 American Journal of Public Health, "90 per cent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians." Another researcher, Nancy Howell Lee, estimated in The Search for an Abortionist (1969) that 89% of illegal abortions were being done by physicians. These estimates are the result of independent research. Calderone was basing her estimates on Planned Parenthood's 1955 conference "Abortion in America," in which physicians, public health officials, and even one criminal abortionist worked together to draw as accurate picture as possible. Lee based her estimates on an extensive survey of women who had sought out abortions prior to legalization.

Death and Lack of Consequences

Mamie Ethel Crowell, age 20, was a telephone operator living on Belmont Avenue in Chicago.

Mamie died on April 15, 1930, possibly in the office of Dr. Hans Paulsen at 4779 Lincoln Avenue, from an abortion performed on her that day. Two days later, Dr. Hans Paulsen was booked for manslaughter by abortion.

The father of the baby, Uriah Denniston, was booked as accessory.

Paulson was held by the Coroner for murder by abortion. Denniston wasn't mentioned in the verdict.

On September 1, the indictment was quashed. The source notes "Circumstances suggesting judicial corruption."

Context in Closing:

The idea that legalizing abortion magically eliminated tragic deaths is false. The major decline in maternal mortality — including deaths from illegal abortion — occurred decades before Roe v. Wade (1973), driven primarily by sulfa drugs (1930s), penicillin and other antibiotics (1940s), improved blood transfusions, and advances in obstetric care. Legalization simply shifted many abortions from one set of physicians to another. In some cases it led those "back alley" physicians to move onto main street and start killing women with a carelessness they never would have dared before legalization, as exemplified by Milan Vuitch, Jesse Ketchum, and Benjamin Munson. All three had no criminal abortions deaths to their discredit but each went on to kill two patients with appalling malpractice after legalization. Legalization did not eliminate the human cost or the incentives for providers to cut corners. Claims of dramatically improved “safety” still rest on voluntary self-reporting from the facilities and physicians performing the procedures, a system with documented cases of falsified records and gaps in accountability.