January 19: Second Self-Induced Abortion Proves Fatal

Anna Fitzgerald, a 19-year-old married woman, died on January 19, 1930 at St. Joseph's Hospital in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She had been admitted by Dr. H. F. Myers after her family had summoned him to attend to the ailing young woman. 

Her death certificate gave her cause of death as "Septic pelvic peritonitis from suppurative endometritis which was caused by induced abortion performed by party unknown."

After an investigation, the authorities decided that the abortion had been self-induced.

Anna had been hospitalized for several weeks a little more than a year previously for a self-induced abortion.

Watch Second Self-Induced Abortion on YouTube.

Sources:

• Death certificate
• "Girl Responsible For Her Death," Lancaster (PA) Intelligencer Journal, January 23, 1930