Ruth Phillips19thcentury, incest, illegaluntrained, wisconsinSUMMARY: Ruth Phillips, age 20, died on June 25, 1882 after an abortion perpetrated by her father.

On June 13, 1882, 20-year-old Ruth Phillips of Wisconsin delivered stillborn twins. She was near death herself.

A few days later she made a shocking deathbed statement to her sisters: she said that their father was the father of the twins, and that he had used instruments on her to cause the abortion that killed the twins and was soon to take her own life.

Ruth died on June 25, and was buried on the 25th. An autopsy was performed, which evidently corroborated the girl’s deathbed statement, since her father, James T. Phillips, was arrested.

There was such outrage in the community that Phillips was in danger of being lynched.

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I have no information on overall maternal mortality, or abortion mortality, in the 19th century. I imagine it can’t be too much different from maternal and abortion mortality at the very beginning of the 20th Century.

Note, please, that with 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.

For more on this era, see Abortion Deaths in the 19th Century.

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

Sources:

• “Wisconsin”, Winona Daily Republican, July 22, 1882

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