Mary Wojnovich19101919, 20s, selfinduced, infection, pennsylvaniaSUMMARY: Mary Komlich Wojnovich, a 26-year-old immigrant from Croatia, died on March 3, 1918 at West Side Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA from complications of a self-induced abortion.

Nikola Wojnovich of Pittsburgh said that on Saturday, February 16, 1918, his 26-year-old wife, Mary, seemed unwell after dinner, very unstable on her feet. Nikola asked her what was wrong, and she said she didn’t know, perhaps she had caught cold while washing the windows. She asked him to help her to bed. He then sent for Dr. Zabaranko, who examined her and prescribed some medication.

The next day Zabaranko returned and diagnosed her with inflammation of the uterus and instructed Nikola to put an ice pack on her abdomen. On Thursday, February 21, Mary’s condition was worse, and Nikola summoned Zabaranko again. When he examined her, he called an ambulance and sent her to Pittsburgh’s South Side Hospital, where Dr. S. A. Beddall admitted her for treatment for “incomplete abortion and pelvic peritonitis due to self inflicted abortion at home 2 weeks ago.”

After Mary’s death, at about 2:00 on the morning of Saturday, March 3, Dr. Henry Klinzing jotted a note to the coroner on a prescription pad saying that Mary, a homemaker and Croatian immigrant, had made a deathbed statement to him on March 1, saying “she inserted a stick of wood into the uterus to bring on menstruation feeling she was pregnant. From this she developed a pelvic peritonitis and subsequently a septic pneumonia from which she died.”

Mary’s abortion is in keeping with turn-of-the-20th-century Pittsburgh abortion deaths, which heavily inclined toward self-induced, in contrast to Chicago abortions of the same period, which were predominately perpetrated by doctors and midwives.

Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

In fact, due to improvements in addressing these problems, maternal mortality in general (and abortion mortality with it) fell dramatically in the 20th Century, decades before Roe vs. Wade legalized abortion across America.

For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see Abortion Deaths 1910-1919.

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

Sources:

• Coroner’s summary 191802-294
• Death certificate

---

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