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Thursday, September 23, 2010

1907: Abortion by midwife proves fatal for Indiana woman

On September 23, 1907, Mrs. Mabel Brock of Lake Station, Indiana, died in Chicago's John Streeter Hospital.

The coroner's jury determined that she had died from an abortion performd by midwife Mrs. Lobbie from Hobart, Indiana.

See Mabel's grave at Find a Grave.

Mabel's abortion was unusual in that it was not performed by a physician.

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. For more about abortion and abortion deaths in the first years of the 20th century, see Abortion Deaths 1900-1909.

15 comments:

  1. Today, a proctologist, one Boris Sachekov, was arrested for medicare fraud.

    According to realchoice.com logic, this proves that all proctologists are crooks, and shows that proctology should be banned!

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  2. Proctologists are not by definition killers, as are abortionists.

    Proctologists didn't convince the public to tolerate their practice, as did abortionists, with glib (and false) promises to stop killing their patients.

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  3. GG, no abortion doc or pro-choicer ever promised to reduce patient mortality TO ZERO.

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  4. But they claimed they'd put the "back alley butchers" out of business. Instead they let them hang out their shingles on Main Street. The same quack doctors that were doing pre-Roe abortions did them post-Roe, and they were joined by more wash-outs like Steve Brigham. The promise was that women wouldn't die the same kind of horrible deaths. That was an empty promise. Legalization had zero impact on the number of deaths, and women still get disemboweled and sent home to bleed out in front of their kids. Qui bono?

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  5. RE: "The promise was that women wouldn't die the same kind of horrible deaths."

    No, the promise was that FEWER women would die the same kind of horrible deaths.

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  6. But there was no change in the death trends. Legalization had ZERO impact on the NUMBER of deaths and the MANNER of death. So the promise was empty. The only changes were that abortionists were easier to find and harder to prosecute. Who did THAT help?

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  7. Well, it helped women who need abortions.

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  8. And you cannot say for sure that the frequency of patient death from abortion didn't drop. It's just too difficult to measure the mortality of a procedure when that procedure is illegal.

    You don't know how many abortions were done in USA before Roe/Wade. So you cannot calculate the mortality of the procedure.

    Suppose, for instance, that the number of deaths remained about equal, but maybe the total number of abortions done went way up upon legalization. That would mean the mortality of the procedure dropped, and you'd never be able to measure it.

    That's one of the good arguments for legal abortion. When it's illegal, it's impossible to study it reliably.

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  9. The caption under your pie-chart "Who performed abortions before legalization?" says that the data in the chart are based on estimations and anecdotes. That means the data are extremely unreliable.

    There's only one true answer to the question "who performed abortions before legalizations?". That answer is: WE DON'T KNOW, AND NEVER WILL KNOW.

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  10. 1. Nobody NEEDS a dead baby. Women may need moral support, practical help, medical care, etc. But they don't need dead babies.

    2. Look at the number of deaths every year. They were plummeting LONG before legalization. But you and other abortion supporters try to take credit for the hard work of those who actually brought about the improved health and medical care that reduced the risks of ALL surgery and illness.

    3. "That's one of the good arguments for legal abortion. When it's illegal, it's impossible to study it reliably." Shall we legalize rape and child molestation, too, so that they're easier to study?

    4. Had you bothered to click on the pie chart you'd have found this article that explains where the pie chart came from. It's based on an extensive study by PLANNED PARENTHOOD, additional study by Nancy Howell Lee, and it's SUPPORTED by anecdotal data. Are you saying that PP researchers were just pulling numbers out of their asses?

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  11. 1. If a pregnant woman wants an abortion, then she needs one. Otherwise she's being forced by government to grow and bear a baby, which is an unconscionable violation.

    2. If mortality was good before legalization, it's only because the bans on abortion were almost entirely symbolic and unenforced.

    3. No, it's not a good argument for legalizing rape and child molestation, but it is a good argument for legalizing victimless crimes like drugs and for legalizing justified procedures like abortion on demand.

    4. I bet PP admitted somewhere in their report of the numbers that they were only estimations. Every report of statistics like that includes a section on how reliable the authors think their data are. Pulling numbers out of your ass is not so bad, so long as you admit that that's what you're doing. The problem with your site is you pull numbers out of your ass and then you pretend they're reliable numbers.

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  12. 1. Abortion ideation decreases as the pregnancy progresses. What you see in abortion is stressed out women being told that the idea "I can't cope" reflects a reality of being unable to cope. When Mary Calderone reflected on the findings of the 1955 Conference on Abortion , she said, "[Members of the 1955 Planned Parenthood conference on abortion] agreed, and this was backed up by evidence from the Scandinavians, that when a woman seeking an abortion is given the chance of talking over her problem with a properly trained and oriented person, she will in the process very often resolve many of her qualms and will spontaneously decide to see the pregnancy through, particularly if she is assured that supportive help will continue to be available to her." (Calderone, "Illegal Abortion as a Public Health Problem," American Journal of Public Health, July 1960)

    The idea that the initial ambivalence of pregnancy is evidence of a "need" to abort is one of the most despicable lies your Infernal Father has put forth.

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  13. 2. Mortality was improving before legalization because overall health and the quality of medical care were improving. "We don't put quacks in jail when they kill women" isn't exactly a safety enforcement mentality. In fact, lackadaisical is what allowed deadly quacks like Lucy Hagenow to ply their trade.

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  14. 3. Abortion is hardly a "victimless crime". A person's life is violently ended. Your lack of empathy changes nothing. You might just as well call Ted Bundy's crimes "victimless" because of HIS lack of empathy for those HE killed.

    EVERY criminal lacks empathy for his victims.

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  15. 4. Estimates can be EDUCATED estimates based on solid research. Just because you, personally, find the estimates don't back your political agenda doesn't make them any less valid.

    Why don't you READ the documents of the 1955 conference on abortion? Educate yourself a bit, instead of dressing up Planned Parenthood "talking points" and ignoring their real research?

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