Abortion Cases of the 19th Century
By Heather Knapp
Although abortions were very dangerous, as well as socially unacceptable during the nineteenth century, women were not altogether unable to obtain abortions and many suffered accusations of infanticide. Here I will present a few of the more famous cases from the period, demonstrating the occurrence of abortion, the availability of providers, and the consequences faced by those who necessitated the procedure.
One case that dominated the pages of The Revolution, the paper owned by Susan B. Anthony and edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, was the sentencing of a young girl to hang for the death of her child. While not a case of abortion, the death was termed an infanticide and drew strong opinions from the public as well as both the editors. The unfortunate Hester Vaughan, an English girl living in Philadelphia, was discovered in a tiny tenement room devoid of furniture February 8, 1868, forty-eight hours after giving birth. Alone during labor, without food or heat, she was found frail and feverish with her baby dead beside her. She was immediately brought to the police and imprisoned, under the assumption that she had killed her child. For thirty dollars, she acquired the services of a lawyer by the name of Goforth and underwent a brief trial. Having never actually confessed to committing the crime, she was nonetheless sentenced to death by County Judge Ludlow, and placed in Moyamensing Prison until her execution.
Once news of the case reached the public, the women of The Revolution unleashed
their sympathies in article after article denouncing the indictment. In an August
6, 1868 editorial it was written:
“
If that poor child of sorrow is hung, it will be deliberate, downright murder.
Her death will be far more horrible infanticide than was the killing of her child.
She is the child of our society and civilization, begotten and born of it, seduced
by it, by the judge who pronounced her sentence, by the bar and jury, by the
legislature that enacted the law (in which because a woman, she had no vote or
voice), by the church and the pulpit that sanctify the law and deeds, of all
these will her blood, yea, and her virtue too, be required! All these were the
joint seducer, and now see if by hanging her, they will also become her murderer.”
However, Hester never had to face the day of her execution and instead spent
nearly two years in jail. Despite this reprieve, many were angered that she
had been unjustly incarcerated. It was clear to them that she had been abandoned
by a man whom she had trusted, a man who to this day remains unknown, his own
reputation left untarnished. It appears that he acted first as her rescuer,
saving
her from life on the street and employing her in his own home. It is likely
that he had a family and perhaps turned Hester out upon discovering that she
had become
impregnated from their transgressions. As far as the law was concerned at this
time, the death of Hester’s baby only meant that she deserved punishment.
It does not appear that the child’s paternity was ever fully investigated.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton proclaimed the case as an example of “the unjust
laws that make crimes for women that are not crimes for men” (The
Revolution,
11/19/1868) and Parker Pillsbury reiterated that “woman has no vote or
voice in the law that ruthlessly robs her of life. Her consent to be thus governed,
to be thus killed, has never been obtained.” (The Revolution, 12/10/1868).
The case also drew parallels to another trial of the time where a man by the
name of General Cole was acquitted after shooting his wife’s lover. He
was released on a plea of temporary insanity for the murder. Women wrote in to
The Revolution outraged that he was set free while Hester remained in prison.
On New Year’s Eve, 1868, a letter to the editors signed E. M. C. included
many contemptuous remarks on behalf of the General’s exoneration, part
of which I will reprint here:
“
I am glad when anyone is rescued, on any plea, whatever, from that relic of barbarism – the
scaffold; but where is the justice, or the semblance of justice, in convicting
her and acquitting him; he had done the deed, shot another in cold blood, no
proof was wanting to establish this fact, but the provocation being deemed sufficient
to justify the act, the jury cover it with the plea of insanity, and pronounce
him innocent. I deny that there is any evidence strong enough to convict Hester
Vaughan of the murder of her child, but if there were, should it be called murder?...Suppose
the maternal heart, blinded and warped through love for the child, hatred of
its origin, despair of the future; suppose, I say, it had madly and mistakenly,
taken the life of its infant – is that murder? Let not the jury that acquitted
Gen. Cole dare to answer in the affirmative…Let women defend women, let
them be her judge, then and only then can justice be done, that sublimest [sic]
justice that is tempered with charity.”
Connecting Hester’s case with that of the General’s, further concluded
that women needed to take an interest in the courts of their judicial system.
In another December 10, 1868 article, Elizabeth Cady Stanton stressed that “had
Hester Vaughan been informed of her rights and privileges, she might have challenged
her jurors.” Furthermore they stressed the influence economic status has
on the judiciary such as in an article published February 18, 1869, stating that
Hester was “condemned to death…because lacking wealth and position
she had no way to win either justice or mercy.” Another article spoke of
the extreme partiality of the courts, claiming that in 1869, a criminal would
receive twelve and a half years for theft and only seven years for murdering
a woman (The Revolution, 4/8/1869).
To close Hester’s case, it is apparent that by July of 1869, she was safe
at home in England, according to a letter written by a Doctor Susan A. Smith,
who concerned with her state of affairs, became well-acquainted with Hester.
The Doctor had even begun a campaign calling for women all around to show their
concern for the young victim by donating money for her cause. While it is hard
to say if there ever was a large outpouring of grief for Hester in monetary form,
many women did feel the urge to speak out against her imprisonment in poetry
and writing before her release, including a piece written by Lizzie Doyen which
was published in the March 25, 1869 issue of The Revolution that captured her
sympathies:
“
Let every heart by sorrow tried –
Let every woman born,
Feel that her cause stands side by side
With that of HesterVaughan.”
Parker Pillsbury, in an article dated August 19, 1869, concluded in a final
statement that were Hester “the wickedest Magdalen that ever sinned, were her hands
even stained with the murder of her own innocent, which no one who investigated
the case ever did, or ever will believe, it would be no palliation for their
cruelties.”
My research on Hester Vaughan, provides the foundation for further investigation
on the opinions of women and men at the time of her incarceration. I was
only able to examine the pages of The Revolution dating from the years 1868
to 1870,
which is when discussion of her ordeals had begun to wind down. However,
whenever a new case involving other women with similar hardships appeared
in the news,
she was most always compared with Hester in writing. A 1867 case that caught
attention in France was reported in a February 4, 1869 article in The
Revolution,
most likely due to the furor erupting from Hester’s case. In France, sixteen
year old Josephine Theophile had been working for an embroidery manufacturer
by the name of Remy, despite her parents’ concern that it was inappropriate
for her to be in service of him. Their fears came true when Josephine became
pregnant. According to the Chicage Times, cited in the article, Remy convinced
Josephine to kill her child after its birth and allow him to bury it. Contrary
to what Hester’s case resulted in, Josephine was acquitted by her jury
while Remy was sentenced to ten year incarceration with hard labor. The writers
of the Times article concluded that were cases like this handled the same way
in the United States, there would be a decrease in the occurrence of infanticide: “We
have no doubt that were greater vigilance exercised for the detection of this
crime, and were the seducer made a correspondent in the accusation, or made the
principal sufferer in the penalty which the law should provide, there would at
once, begin an era which would be marked by a vast decrease in the frequent crime,
and one of the most frightful of the age.”
Many, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, felt that men who having betrayed
their paramours or took advantage of women living in dire situations should
not continue
to “walk this green earth in freedom” while the victim herself faced
the result of their actions alone (1/14/1869). Stanton wrote her diatribe on “manhood
suffrage,” asserting that “society as organized today under the man
power, is one grand rape of womanhood,” after discovering yet another case
of infanticide, this one occurring in northern New Jersey. An orphaned girl with
the surname Abson, having been raped by a black man who worked on a farm for
her same employer, gave birth to a child at the Hudson County Almshouse. Three
days later the baby was found dead, and the young fourteen year old mother went
under investigation.
Although it appears that in the cases previously stated, the women did not
look for outside help when faced with their reproductive dilemmas, many sought
out
the aid and assistance of doctors. One such woman was Alice A. Bowlsby of
Paterson, NJ, who after discovering her pregnancy went to New York in search
of an abortion
provider during the summer of 1871. She found one in a Dr. Jacob Rosenzweig,
but died under treatment. She was next found August 26, in a trunk at the
Hudson River Railroad Depot, awaiting pickup from one of the doctor’s previous
clients who had survived the procedure. When officials discovered the contents
of the trunk, this young woman fled, presumably to Canada, and hearing of Bowlsby’s
death, the father of the child, Walter F. Conklin, committed suicide. Dr. Rosenzweig
was taken into custody for his actions. A Harper’s Weekly article dated
September 16, 1871, denounces the practices of abortion providers, equating them
to quacks who cause the murderers of hundreds each year in back-alley facilities,
but yet does not provide another solution to unwanted pregnancies. In a September
16, 1871 article entitled “The Social Volcano” found in Woodhull & Claflin’s
Weekly, it was declared that “Miss Bowlsby ran [the risks of getting an
abortion] to satisfy the laws of society. We say that society itself is the patron
of abortionists, that society’s present laws make their occupation excusable,
nay, a necessity; that the very men who are so loud in their denunciations of
Rosenzweig and his class have, nine out of every ten of them, paid for his assistance,
and, among women, nine out of ten would act as Alice Bowlsby did, if placed in
the same position.” This case draws a similar conclusion to a case also
described in Harper’s Weekly two decades earlier when a Rochester doctor
named A. P. Beigler was sentenced to seven years in Auburn State Prison for providing
an abortion which killed Ms. Amelia Murr in August of 1858.
Another case that, however, did not begin with the death of the patient occurred
in 1897, when Mollie Smith procured an abortion from a W. C. Moore. Although
she survived, upon discovery of her dead fetus, her family charged Moore
with committing a criminal offense and was sentenced to five years in jail
for administering
abortifacient drugs and using an instrument to cause the abortion. Even though
the woman had consented and voluntarily asked for the abortion, she was still
seen as the victim of a crime with the provider as her accomplice, and moreover,
as the perpetrator at fault. Had the case not been one of consent, he simply
would have received double the punishment for the supposed crime.
Such cases perhaps explain why doctors such as Charlotte [Clemence]Lozier,
who in 1869 refused to provide an abortion on the grounds that it would be
a dangerous
procedure. The New York World, perhaps adding to the doctor’s rationale,
reported at the time that: “the laws of New York make the procuring of
a miscarriage a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment for not less than three
months, nor more than a year; they define the committing of an abortion resulting
in the death of either child or mother to be manslaughter in the second degree.” After
she spoke to Caroline Fuller and declined to participate in the matter, the girl’s
married lover, Andrew Moran of South Carolina demanded the doctor perform an
abortion and suggested a bribe of $1,000 should the girl die in the process.
Dr. Lozier subsequently had the two arrested but only Moran was held for trial.
Despite the refusal on Dr. Lozier’s part to provide the abortion, had Caroline
so desired and looked, she could have found many others willing to provide the
treatment. Among them may have been Madame Restelle who lived in New York and
provided many abortions, as well as birth control, during her time, inspiring
the appropriation of a new title for the practice – Restellism, a word
coined in the pages of The Revolution. The fact is that, despite the laws of
the time and possible consequences, a woman could procure an abortion for herself.
While not always obtained in the best way and often resulting in the fatality
of the mother, the circumstances cannot be denied. I have presented the previous
cases mentioned not only to increase awareness of their existence, but also to
present the opinions I have found through research of the women, especially those
of the editing staff of The Revolution, and to present a context in which these
attitudes have been taken. My research, having been limited by time and resources
available to me is not meant to be final, but serve as the groundwork for further
and future examination of such cases and their effect on the population.
Primary Sources
C., E. M. “Gen. Cole and Hester Vaughan.” The Revolution 31 Dec.
1868.
“
A French Hester Vaughan.” The Revolution 4 Feb. 1869.
"
Hester Vaughan Again!" The Revolution 28 Jan. 1869.
"
Hester Vaughan Again." The Revolution 25 Mar. 1869.
"
Hester Vaughan and Gen. Cole Again." The Revolution 18 Feb. 1869.
"
Home and Foreign Gossip." Harper's Weekly 13 Jan. 1872.
Hopkins, Harriet C. L. “Hester Vaughan.” The Revolution 2 Sept..
1869.
"
Infanticide." The Revolution 6 Aug. 1868.
Kirk, Eleanor. “Is Hester Vaughan Guilty?” The Revolution 1 Jan.
1869.
"
One More Unfortunate." Harper's Weekly 16 Sept. 1871.
"
Personal." Harper's Weekly 14 Aug. 1858.
Pillsbury, Parker. "The Hester Vaughan Meeting at Cooper Institute." The
Revolution 10 Dec. 1868.
Pillsbury, Parker. "Hester Vaughan Once More." The Revolution 19 Aug.
1869.
"
Restellism Exposed." The Revolution 2 Dec. 1869.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. "Hester Vaughan." The Revolution 19 Nov. 1868.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. "Hester Vaughan." The Revolution 10 Dec. 1868.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. "Supposed Infanticide." The Revolution 14
Jan. 1869.
Secondary Sources
A 19th Century Abortion Case. 25 Apr. 2000. 31 Mar. 2004
<
http://realchoice.0catch.com/library/weekly/aa042500a.htm>.
“
She is More to be Helped than Despised” - Women, Sexuality and Murder
in
19th Century America: Alice A. Bowlsby. Apr. 1996. Brown University. 31 Mar.
2004
<
http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/exhibits/RLCexhibit/bowls
by/bowlsbyms.html>.
"
The Social Volcano." Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly 16 Sept. 1871. 31 Mar.
2004 <http://www.victoria-woodhull.com/wc091600.htm>.