Search: "How many women died from abortion in 1929"

We need some perspective first. All surgery of any sort in 1929 was done without the aid of modern blood transfusion and antibiotics. All surgery of any sort in 1929 was riskier than similar surgery today. This is the era where kitchen-table surgery was phasing out in favor of hospital-based surgery. I have an obstetrical nursing textbook from this era that describes how to set up an operating table in the woman's home to perform a c-section.

Blood banks were cutting-edge battlefield medicine just a few years before, and had not yet come into common usage. Blood type compatibility was not yet understood. It wasn't until the late 1930s and early 1940s that things like separating blood products started to come into practice. Antibiotics were not manufactured and used widely until after WWII. (See chart, below)

So keep in mind that things that may seem appalling to us in the early 21st century -- such as performing surgery in one's home -- was not appalling at the time. Things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.

With that said, I can't find any numbers for abortion mortality prior to 1940. It seems that before that, the information available lumps all maternal mortality together, and abortions can't be sorted out. But we can hazard a guess that the numbers were at least as high as they were in 1940. How much higher? It's hard to say.



So our best guess, based on what I've been able to find, is about 1,400 deaths a year from abortions in the late 1920s and early 1930s -- a number that would combine illegal abortions, the rare "therapeutic abortion" performed as a last-ditch attempt to save a dying woman, and miscarriages.

With that established, let's look at some examples of women who died, and who did their abortions:

1. Louise Allman -- midwife
   
2. Emmy Anderson --Dr. Sven Windrow in Chicago
   
3. Barbara Auer -- person or persons unknown
   
4. Alline Brown --unidentified perpetrator
   
5. Virginia Clark -- physician
   
6. Violet Dianalana -- homemaker
   
7. Clara Duvall (according to NOW which doesn't cite any sources) -- apparently self-aborted
   
8. Anna Fazio -- midwife
   
9. Ruth Friedl (according to NOW which doesn't cite any sources) -- herbal abortifacient
   
10. Winifred Garver -- Dr. Anna Schultz, assisted by Dr. James White
    
11. Agnes Johnson -- Dr. Joseph Stern
    
12. Marjorie Johnson -- unknown perpetrator
    
13. Mary Kelly -- unidentified person
    
14. Viola Koepping -- Dr. Albert West
    
15. Jennie Kuba -- midwife Mary Zwieniczak
    
16. Elizabeth Palumbo -- Dr. Amante (or Amenti) Rongetti, who ran a maternity hospital that obviously also ran an abortion trade.
    
17. Frances Rogers -- unidentified person
    
18. Dorothy Schultz --Dr. W. B. Parke
    
19. Fannie Shead --unidentified perpetrator
    
20. Mary Strugnall --Dr. Joseph A. Harter
    
21. Amelia Stumbras -- unknown perpetrator
    
22. Edna Vargo -- homemaker
    
23. Ruth Weir -- Dr. Maurice Sturm

Here is a breakdown of who performed the fatal abortions I've uncovered for the 1920s:



*Doctors: 45.65%
*Perpetrator, or perpetrator's profession, unknown: 29.71%
*Other medical person: 20.29%
*Self: 1.45%
*Professional lay abortionist: 0.72%

If we figure that the least likely to die are those who get a doctor to do their abortions, and the most likely to die those who take things into their own hands, this small sample is in keeping with the estimates of Mary Calderone and Nancy Howell Lee, that about 90% of criminal abortions were done by doctors.


For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.

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