I stumbled across a video about a self-induced abortion death -- one I was able to verify by searching for a death certificate. Winifred "Win" Mayer died on April 18, 1944, at around 2:00 in the afternoon. Her death certificate attributes her death to shock "due to attempt at criminal abortion self inflected." She was in the second month of her pregnancy. The autopsy showed cuts in her uterus, hemorrhage, and congestion of her lungs, liver, and kidneys.
According to the YouTube video, Win was living in military housing in Virginia with her husband and two small children. Her husband, Eddie, worked for the government was about to be deployed overseas for an undetermined amount of time and Win didn't feel prepared to care for a third child while he was away. She already had a son, Peter, who was not quite three years old and a 10-month-old baby girl, Judy. Win was college educated and financially comfortable, according to her granddaughter.
Win's mother, her granddaughter says, was a nurse in New York. Win travelled to New York to use her mother's connections with doctors who performed criminal abortions. For some reason this arrangement fell through. Win's father, who was a doctor, refused to perpetrate the abortion. Win's daughter said that Win's French stepmother told her that women in France "take care of this themselves." Win returned to Virginia.
Whether she got specific instructions from her stepmother or another person or just came up with an approach on her own, Win put the children down for their naps, went into the bathroom, and attempted the abortion. Eddie came home after work and found her dead.
 |
Mary Calderone |
There is no record of why Win chose to abort her unborn baby. There is also no record of why she didn't pursue a professional abortionist, as most abortion-minded women did. 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment