Louise Allman1920s, 20s, chicago, illinois, illegalmidwifeSUMMARY: Louise Allman, age 25, died February 5, 1929 after an illegal abortion perpetrated in Chicago, allegedly by midwife Amelia Juarez.

On January 29, 1929, Glasgow native Louise Allman, nee Yucius, age 25, underwent an abortion at the home of Amelia K. Jaruez, a midwife. The address is also listed as a medical facility, so evidently she provided care to legitimate patients there as well.

On February 5, Louise died, leaving behind a husband, Stanley.

Jaruez was held by the coroner on February 23, and indicted for homicide by a grand jury, but she was acquitted on July 2 for reasons not indicated in the sources. Reasons for acquittal could be technicalities, including the possibility that the abortion should have been considered a legal abortion, or because the person didn’t actually perpetrate the abortion. Without further documentation, it’s impossible to know.

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.

Abortion-rights groups dismiss post-legalization deaths with a flippant assertion that “all surgery has risks,” but do not accept that the same was true prior to legalization. Surgery was riskier then, so abortion was riskier as well. As the 20th century progressed, all maternal mortality, including abortion mortality, fell as medical care improved. Antibiotics and blood transfusions — along with overall better health due to increasing prosperity — deserve the credit for falling mortality, which was hardly caused retroactively by the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling striking down all the nation’s abortion laws.

No doubt there was quackery prior to legalization — but such quackery persists today. Removing the threat of jail for any but the most egregious behavior does not provide motivation to run a tight ship. Three erstwhile criminal abortionists that I know of — Benjamin Munson, Milan Vuitch, and Jesse Ketchum — didn’t lose a single abortion patient until after legalization made them less fearful of repercussions and thus far more careless. Each went on to kill two legal abortion patients, not out of simple surgical complications, but due to appalling quackery.

If abortion-rights groups were as concerned with women’s lives as they are about the Holy Grail of “access,” women could only benefit. If only half of the effort put into investigating and trying to shut down prolife pregnancy help centers were put into investigating and trying to shut down seedy abortion mills, only abortionists would suffer. Women would benefit. Whose side are they really on?

It’s time we got real about how little is different between illegal and legal abortion practice: the main difference is how much risk of being shut down or sent to prison the safe-and-legal abortionist faces.

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

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Source:

• Homicide in Chicago Interactive

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1. 1900s
2. 1910-1919
3. 1920s
4. 1930s
5. 1940s
6. 1950s
7. 1960s
8. 1970s
9. 1980s
10. 1990s
11. 19th century
12. 2000-2009
13. 20s
14. 30s
15. 40s
16. NAF
17. abortifacient
18. abortion
19. abortion mill
20. abortion mortality
21. abortionists
22. abortionists — female
23. abortionists — male
24. alabama
25. anesthesia
26. arizona
27. black women
28. botched abortion
29. california
30. chicago
31. colorado
32. connecticut
33. cover-up
34. death
35. deaths
36. deception
37. delay in transport
38. delay in treatment
39. district of columbia
40. dumped body
41. ectopic
42. embolism
43. falsifying forms
44. fetal indications
45. florida
46. former criminal abortionist
47. george tiller
48. georgia
49. hemorrhage death
50. hospitals
51. illegal – doctor
52. illegal – midwife
53. illegal – nurse
54. illegal – paramedical
55. illegal – post roe
56. illegal – unknown
57. illegal – untrained
58. illegal abortion
59. illinois
60. inadequate documents
61. inadequate equipment
62. inadequate resuscitation
63. incomplete abortion
64. indiana
65. infection
66. kansas
67. legal abortion
68. llinois
69. louisiana
70. maryland
71. massachusetts
72. maternal indications
73. maternal mortality
74. michigan
75. mills
76. missouri
77. mortality
78. national abortion federation
79. new jersey
80. new mexico
81. new york
82. north carolina
83. ohio
84. oklahoma
85. pennsylvania
86. planned parenthood
87. pre-roe legal
88. previous misconduct
89. prostaglandin
90. quackery
91. questionable stories
92. ru-486
93. rupture
94. saline
95. secret abortion
96. self-induced
97. suicide
98. teens
99. texas
100. wisconsin