Ethel Horner1920s, 20s, chicago, illinois, illegaldoctorOn October 15, 1926, 23-year-old homemaker Ethel Horner, a Chicago native, died at Chicago’s Jackson Park Hospital from an abortion performed earlier that day.

Theresa Feltz, a mother of five, admitted that she had taken Ethel to the Chicago office of 55-year-old Dr. Albert Peacock, who was arrested the following day. On November 15, 1926, he was indicted for felony murder.

Peacock, who told police, “I’m too old to go through with a trial,” when they arrested him, admitted to the abortion but insisted that it had been medically necessary.

Ethel’s husband, Robert Horner, said that he’d been unaware that his wife was arranging an abortion.

Ethel’s abortion was typical of criminal abortions in that it was performed by a doctor.

Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. For more about abortion in this era, see Abortion in the 1920s.

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

Sources:

• Homicide in Chicago Interactive
• “Physician Held in Death of Woman After Operation,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 17, 1926

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