On June 13, 1882, 20-year-old Ruth Phillips of Wisconsin delivered stillborn twins. She was near death herself.
A few days later
she made a shocking deathbed statement to her sisters: she said that
their father was the father of the twins, and that he had used
instruments on her to cause the abortion that killed the twins and was
soon to take her own life.
Ruth died on June
25, and was buried on the 25th. An autopsy was performed, which
evidently corroborated the girl's deathbed statement, since her father,
James T. Phillips, was arrested.
There was such outrage in the community that Phillips was in danger of being lynched.
No comments:
Post a Comment