| Marie Hicht, Criminal Abortion Death | |
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Marie Hicht, employed as a domestic on Dearborn Avenue, died September 2, 1899 at the office of Dr. Louise Hagenow from complications of an abortion performed there that day. Dr. Hagenow was sentenced to Joliet prison in 1900 for Marie's death. It is likely that this Dr. Louise Hagenow is the Dr. Lucy Hagenow mentioned in Leslie J. Reagan's book, When Abortion Was A Crime. Reagan says that Dr. Lucy Hagenow was connected with the 1899 abortion death of a patient. There were a number of deaths in Chicago attributed to either a Lucy Hagenow or a Louise Hagenow. These are the same woman, a physician/midwife who also called herself Ida Von Schultz. The deaths include: Hagenow was typical of criminal abortionists in that she was a doctor. 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
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