SY101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Innocent Victims, American Medical Association, Dorothy Roberts
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Victims and villains in murder by abortion cases from. As a result of a national effort by the american medical association, most states had passed statutes criminalizing abortion at all stages by the turn of the 20th century. At the time, a woman seeking an abortion was not considered guilty of committing a crime- rather by definition; she was defined as an object upon which others acted . If an illegal abortion caused a woman"s death, the abortionist could be charged with murder. Despite the formal legal ban on abortion, women in chicago continued to seek and receive abortions throughout the entire 108 period that abortion was considered illegal. It is impossible to document the exact number of deaths resulted from illegal abortions. Both physicians (actual doctors) and midwives (women who performed abortions) shared equal responsibility for performing illegal abortions that ended in death.
