On November 11, 1929, 23-year-old Mary L. Kelly died in Chicago from an abortion performed by an unidentified perpetrator.
On November 11, 1909, Marian Lang, age 29, died in Chicago home from an abortion. Dr. Pope was indicted by a grand jury. The source document does not indicate that the case went to trial.
Note, please, that with issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good. And things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.
For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion.
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