Abortion Deaths: 19th Century and 20th Century

Mary Visscher died on September 3, 1859 after an abortion perpetrated by Dr. Elizabeth Byrns or Dr. Mary Smith in Brooklyn.

Mary, who worked at a hoop-skirt factory in Brooklyn, was keeping company with a man named Mr. Wright. On August 23, 1859, she left the home of Mrs. C. Perrine, where she had been a boarder, saying that she ws going first to Jersey City, then to Philadelphia. She asked Mrs. Perrine to keep the trip a secret. Mrs. Mary Sherman, who owned the hoop-skirt factory, said that Mary had come to her saying she was going to New Jersey and Philadelphia and asking her to keep the trip a secret. Like Mrs. Perrine, Mrs. Sherman had no idea that Mary might be pregnant.

Mary did not, however, go to New Jersey or Philadelphia. She instead went to the "stylish" house of two female physicians, Elizabeth Byrns and Mary E. Smith, who practiced midwifery. Byrns and Smith said that Mary had come to their home to be treated for back pain due to a fall, and that they'd not even know she was pregnant until after the abortion, which they attributed the abortion "to the imprudence of deceased herself." The abortion took place on August 27, and Mary "lingered" until her death from peritonitis on Saturday, September 3.

The coroner's jury decided that Byrnes had performed the abortion, with the prior knowledge of Smith, who was charged as an accessory before the fact. I have so far been unable to determine the outcome of the case.


After California legalized abortion on demand in 1970, a Texas company began selling abortion referrals and air fare. Twenty-year-old Kathryn Morse was one customer.

Kathryn was admitted to Bel Air Memorial Hospital in LA County on September 1, 1972. (Until Roe v. Wade, California abortions were performed in hospitals, and many hospitals opened specializing in abortion.) John Dupont initiated a salineabortion on her. Kathryn developed a 102 degree fever, then expelled the dead baby just after midnight on September 3. Kathryn's blood pressure rose, she went into shock, and was pronounced dead by Dupot at 9:40 AM. An autopsy found sepsis, and gangrene of the ovary.

The abortion lobby would tell you that although Kathryl's death is tragic, far more women would die if abortion wasn't legal. The facts simply don't support that assertion. As you can see from the graph below, abortion deaths were falling dramatically before legalization. This steep fall had been in place for decades. To argue that legalization lowered abortion mortality simply isn't supported by the data.

Three Typial Illegal Deaths: The Work of Doctors

Mary Calderone

All three of the Cemetery of Choice deaths that took place on this date are abortions that were perpetrated by doctors. As then-Planned Parenthood Federation medical director Mary Calderone estimated in The American Journal of Public Health, " (1960) 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 totally 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.

With that in mind, let's look at the women whose deaths we commemorate today.

Chicago, 1892: Dr. Lucy Hagenow

On Monday, December 12, 1892, Emily Anderson of Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, died of peritonitis from a criminal abortion. Emily, widow of Andrew Anderson, kept a boarding house.

Dr. A. P. Ohlenocher, whose office was just up the street from the unfortunate young woman's home, testified that he was called in to attend to her. A woman who was caring for Emily said that one of Emily's boarders, a shoe salesman named Henry Gilbspen, had gotten Emily pregnant. When Ohlenocher questioned Henry, he denied having gotten Emily pregnant, but he did tell the doctor that he had accompanied Emily to Dr. Lucy Hagenow's office at her request, but did not go inside with her.

Dr. Lucy Hagenow

Hagenow denied ever having seen Emily. Gilbspen turned State's evidence against Hagenow, but she was acquitted when the judge instructed the jury to return a not-guilty verdict, concluding on his own that the state had not produced sufficient evidence for a conviction.

Hagenow, who had already been tried multiple times for abortion deaths in San Francisco (Louise Duchow, Annie Dories, Emma Dep, and Abbia Richards) before moving to Chicago, and had already been implicated in the deaths of Minnie Deering and Sophia Kuhn, went on to be tied to nearly a dozen more Cook County abortion deaths: Hannah Carlson, Marie Hecht, May Putnam, Lola Madison, Annie Horvatich,  Lottie Lowy, Nina Pierce, Jean Cohen, Bridget Masterson, Elizabeth Welter, and Mary Moorehead. Hagenow told reporters that she was able to ply her trade so successfully because she bribed officials and police officers.

El Paso, 1917: Dr.  John C. Dysart

Mary Francis Falls died on December 12, 1917 from peritonitis caused by an abortion perpetrated on November 15 by Dr. John C. Dysart in El Paso, Texas. Her mother, Mrs. Stringfield, had reported the abortion to police. 
 
Mary Francis's sister-in-law testified that after Mary Francis had died, Dysart had prepared a paper for all the concerned parties to sign stating that they would not press for prosecution if he covered the costs for Mary Francis' treatment and funeral expenses.
 
During Dysart's trial for murder by abortion, Dr. Hugh White testified that Mary Francis had called him about two weeks before her death, saying that she had malaria. Dr. White doubted this an later discovered that his suspicions were correct and that his patient was suffering complications from an abortion. He performed the post-mortem examination and found pus throughout her abdomen.
 
Dysart's defense was that he had only treated Mary Francis for complications of a self-induced abortion. He was acquitted on the murder charge after five hours of deliberation. Another unspecified charge related to Mary Francis's death was not dismissed.

Chicago, 1930: Dr. Emil Gleitsman

Dr. Emil Gleitsman

On December 1, 1930, 22-year-old Jeanette Reder underwent a criminal abortion at the Chicago office of Dr. Emil Gleitsman. Jeanette died December 12. Gleitsman was indicted by a grand jury for homicide, but was acquitted on June 15, 1931. The source does not clarify why there was enough evidence to indict Gleitsman, but not enough to convict him.
 
However, like  Hagenow, Gleitsman was a persistent abortionist. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) noted in 1943 that the Illinois Supreme Court had upheld Gleitsman's 1942 murder by abortion conviction, for which he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. 

Gleitsman was indicted for 22-year-old Lucille van Iderstine's abortion death in 1928 and was convicted three times on a single charge of manslaughter by abortion in the death of 21-year-old Mary Colbert in 1933, but each time his lawyer got a reversal and eventually the prosecutors gave up.