1928: Chicago midwife performs fatal abortion

On April 3, 1928, 30-year-old Stafania Kwit died in Chicago from complications of a criminal abortion performed that day by midwife Pauline Majerczyk. On May 3, Mauerczyk was held by the coroner for murder by abortion. Mauerczyk was indicted for felony murder on May 15.

Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. For more about abortion in this era, see Abortion in the 1920s.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

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