Jeanette's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was attributed to a physician.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
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Friday, December 12, 2008
1930: Chicago woman dead from criminal abortion
On December 12, 1930, 22-year-old Jeanette Reder died of complications of a criminal abortion performed at the Chicago office of Dr. Emil Gleitsman on December 1. 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.
Jeanette's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was attributed to a physician.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
Jeanette's abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was attributed to a physician.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion
To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.
In 1930, the national maternal mortality ratio was 670 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.
ReplyDeleteIn 1930, there were 2,618,000 live births.
That means as many as 17,541 women in the US died from complications of pregnancy in 1930 alone.
That's like a dozen Titanic sinkings. In one year.
Safe and legal!
Anon, promoting more abortions is not what corrected that problem. Better nutrition in childhood, better sanitation, and the development of antibiotics and blood transfusions achieved this.
ReplyDeleteAll abortion fixes is the problem of a woman who actually WANTS her baby dead. For the woman who feels despairing and desperate and sees no other way, it's a terrible thing, and you are cruel to promote it.
Like I said to SoMG elsewhere, I realize that this is very difficult for some abortion advocate to grasp, but the majority of women prefer their children alive and in one piece. Try to grasp this, okay?
Anon, there are many women who died from childbirth who would not have chosen abortion at any time -- including many whose doctors suggested and promoted abortion for their life or health. Among these women are those who ultimately died of cancer because the treatment that might have saved their life would have harmed killed their child (or the doctors required them to have an abortion before trying), and these women refused. They willingly chose the greater likelihood of death -- and some of them actually did die -- in order that their babies could live. One woman in my community made this choice just a few years ago when she was diagnosed with a very aggressive type of cancer in the middle of her 2nd trimester. She had her baby by C-section at 30 weeks and immediately went on chemo, dying a few weeks after the baby was born. She probably would have died anyway had she had the abortion and started chemo earlier, but her baby is now living and would definitely have died from abortion.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that abortion is very legal in Romania, and about half of all pregnancies end in abortion in that country? Also that half of maternal mortality in that country is due to abortion? If birth were 11x more dangerous than abortion, that should not be so.
Kathy, regarding Romania, no one says birth is ALWAYS 11x safer than abortion. We say birth is 11x safer than CORRECTLY PERFORMED abortion early in pregnancy. I'm not gonna vouch for the skill of Romanian docs.
ReplyDeleteOops, for "safer" replace with "more dangerous".
ReplyDelete