Emma Alby, age 15, was an immigrant from Hungary who lived in Chicago with her mother, who was also named Emma, and her father, Frank.
According to Mrs. Alby, Emma "complained of nervousness on July 7," 1915. Her parents suspected that "the child had been misbehaving" and took her to see Dr. Charles R. W. Windmueller on Belmont Avenue.
Windmueller told Mr. and Mrs. Alby that Emma was pregnant over Emma's protests that she was "innocent." He recommended an abortion. In When Abortion Was a Crime, Leslie Reagan cites documentation of the inquest into Emma's death and says that Emma's father expressed reservations after having read many accounts in newspapers of midwives perpetrating abortions that proved fatal to the patients. Windmueller reported assured Mr. Alby, "Don't you be afraid. It is no danger at all."
The parents' fears were assuaged, and Windmueller attempted an abortion. According to Reagan's book, Windmueller perforated Emma's uterus and pulled out some of her intestines -- an injury that continues to end women's lives in safe and legal abortions.
Emma's family evidently sought care from a different doctor, because Emma was admitted to Norwegian Lutheran Deaconess Hospital the following day by Dr. J. V. Fowler rather than by Windmueller.
Emma died on September 10. An autopsy found that Emma had been telling the truth: She had not been pregnant.
According to census records, Windmueller was about 35 years old, a naturalized citizen from Germany. According to Regan, he was also a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago and a member of the American Medical Association.
Windmueller was indicted for felony murder in Emma's death. However, I can find no evidence that the case was actually prosecuted, and the fact that he was still living and practicing in Chicago at the time of the 1920 census would indicate that he suffered no long-term repercussions from Emma's death. Reagan merely notes that the response to the botched abortion failed to include a public crusade against physician-abortionists on a par with the contemporary crusade against midwife-abortionists.
Watch She Wasn't Pregnant After All on YouTube.
Sources:
- "Investigate Girl's Death," Chicago Sunday Tribune, September 12, 1915
- "Coroner's Jury Holds Doctor in Girl's Death," Chicago Daily Tribune, October 14, 1915
- Cook County Death Index
- Census records
- Reagan, Leslie J. When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1997 1997
- Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database
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