Saturday, April 11, 2009

1935: Grocery clerk's wife dies from abortion

Mrs. Doris Jones, a 30-year-old mother of two, died April 11, 1935, from complications of a criminal abortion. Dr. Guy E. Brewer, a 53-year-old bachelor known for his benevolence toward college students, was fingered. Brewer was a quiet, small-town doctor in Garber, Oklahoma. Doris' husband, a grocery clerk, had not known about the abortion until after Doris took ill.

Doris' abortion was typical of illegal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.

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 1930s.



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

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