March 18, 1970: An Actual Coat Hanger Abortion

The coat hanger is a symbol of what abortion advocates say will become the norm when there are abortion restrictions, but in all my years of documenting abortion deaths, it wasn't until this year that my researcher found an actual coat hanger abortion. 

The woman's family never went public with her story, so I will call her Mavis Gleason. I've put together her story from public records.

Mavis had married her first husband, "Robert," in Ohio in 1954 when Mavis was 18 and Robert was 21. The couple had three children. 

I've been unable to determine where or when she married her second husband, "George." Together they had two children and lived in Spokane, Washington. 

Mavis's obituary indicates that one of the three children she'd had with Robert was living in Ohio, which I take as evidence that the marriage had ended in divorce rather than widowhood.

Mavis, then a 34-year-old homemaker, was in her home when she reached for a coat hanger to dislodge her unborn baby on March 14, 1970. She took ill with peritonitis the next day because she had poked a hole in her uterus. The peritonitis progressed to septicemia, from which she died at Spokane's Holy Family Hospital on March 18.

Source: Death certificate