Illegal Abortions Before Roe Archives

Abortionist admits some of his patients regretted their abortions

A doctor who did illegal abortions in the 1930s wrote in his 1939 book:

“… I have performed operations later regretted by the women when they wanted children and for some reason could not have them. That has made me more careful.”

Martin Avery Confessions of an Abortionist: Intimate Sidelights on the Secret Humor, Sorrow, Drama and Tragedy in the Experience of a Doctor Whose Profession It Is to Perform Illegal Operations (AJ Cornell Publications, 1939) 29 – 30

Note: Martin Avery is a pseudonym

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Illegal abortionist describes her case

Abortionist Jane E Hodgson challenged the anti-abortion law in Minnesota and became a practicing abortionist after Roe vs. Wade. She committed an illegal abortion so that she could go to court and challenge the laws. Her case was pending when Roe was decided.

Here, Hodgson describes the woman whose illegal abortion she performed to instigate her arrest. Her quote reveals that the woman could have had an abortion despite the law.

“So when Mrs. John Doe, already a mother of three, appeared in my office on April 14, 1970, having contracted German measles during her fourth week of pregnancy, I did not send her to England or Mexico or Montréal. She could have afforded it – but what about future patients who could not?

She could have been aborted here in a local hospital with proper consultations (nothing would have been said) – but what about the next case? And what about respect for law? We both knew we could not dodge the issue.”

Jane E Hodgson “Abortion: The Law and the Reality in 1970” Mayo Alumnus October 1970

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Post-abortive woman says she wouldn’t have aborted if it had been illegal

A post-abortive woman named Linda wrote:

“Yes, [the abortion] was legal. Not only would I never have consented to an illegal abortion, I doubt I would have ever taken the chance of having sex had I not known in the back of my mind there was a way out.”

Pam Koerbel Does Anyone Feel Like I Do? And Other Questions Women Ask Following an Abortion (New York: Doubleday, 1990) 7

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Suicide was rare among pregnant women before abortion was legalized

Before Roe vs. Wade, women could often get permission for an abortion if they claimed they were suicidal. Because abortions were legal to save a woman’s life, many doctors took the threat of suicide as a risk to a woman’s life, meaning an abortion would be legal.

The woman generally had to see a psychiatrist and have him write down that she would kill herself if she wasn’t granted an abortion.

However, suicides among pregnant women were extremely rare. One researcher says:

“In 1964, Dr. Russell S Fisher, Chief Medical Examiner of the State of Maryland, wrote that he could “recall only one pregnancy among the last 700 suicides, although some pregnancies may have been missed since we do not do an autopsy when the manner and the cause of death are established.”

H Rosen “Psychiatric Implications of Abortion” Western Reserve Law Review 17 (1965) 445, cited in David Granfield The Abortion Decision (Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1971) 100

More recent studies have found that the suicide rate in women who had abortions is higher than among women who hadn’t.

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