On November 3, 1952, Isabell Cuda went to the home of Mary Murawsky in Rockford, Illinois, for an illegal abortion. Mary was neither licensed nor qualified to practice medicine. Murawsky used some sort of instrument on Isabell. Isabell became ill, and died on November 12, leaving behind a husband and a minor child.
Isabell's abortion was unusual in that it was performed by an amateur, rather than by a doctor, as was the case with perhaps 90% of criminal abortions.
During the 1950s, we see an anomaly: Though maternal mortality had been falling during the first half of the 20th Century, and abortion mortality in particular had been plummeting, the downward trend slowed, then reversed itself briefly. I have yet to figure out why. For more, see Abortion Deaths in the 1950s.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion.
Let's say you're right, and most criminal abortions were done by doctors.
ReplyDeleteThat means the abortion bans were only very poorly enforced, doesn't it?
Is this meant to be a reason to support an abortion ban? Because it wasn't enforced, and therefore wasn't as bad as people said?
I HOPE that's not the only arrow in your quiver....
You should know better than that. There ought to be a ban on abortion because there ought not to be an exception to laws against killing people for personal gain. The other justifications for abortion bans or restrictions are only to weigh those who place the value of the smallest and most vulnerable among us at very little or even nought.
ReplyDelete