How would a woman have gotten an abortion in the late 1800s?

Question

In the Northeastern US. Would there have been someone she would have gone to, and how would she have found out about them? Would she have taken herbs or some kind of patent medicine, or would it have been an operation? I know of the different methods that existed, but I'm not sure which one would be the easiest/most likely.

Answer 1

There were abortionists practising in the the 19th century.  In fact, when Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to graduate from a US medical school, set up in business as a doctor, she had great difficulty renting office space, because landlords assumed that 'female physician' meant abortionist.

Madame REstell, who made a fortune in New York City in the pre-civil war era, advertised herself as a former "female physician in the two principle female hospitals in Europe - those of Vienna and Paris - where, favoured by her great experience and opportunities, she attained that celebrity in those great discoveries in medical science so specially adapted to the female frame."  Although she became infamous as an abortionist, she did most of her business selling contraceptive devices and running a confidential maternity hospital.  If a pregnancy was past the quickening stage, she prefered to arrange for a clandestine adoption.  She was a constant target of angry editorials in the city newspapers (which nevertheless took her advertisements), and a public shunning so complete that the houses on either side of her Fifth Avenue brownstone were empty.

Answer 2

All cultures and especially during the pre-christian eras abortions were regularly performed. If women or families could not feed another mouth and did not get an abortion most of the time they would keep a boy child and dispose of a female infant. There are tools that have been discovered and also documentation to this effect all through history.  

Answer 3

herbs of some kind, but that was dangerous because it could cause excessive bleeding.  Many women died from it.

Answer 4

mm it sounds bad but i would imagine she would just try to damage it early on so that she would end up having a miscarraige.

because i mean the 1800s... not a lot of technology...

Answer 5

i think they used like, a hanger or something similar to that

Answer 6

They would not have an abortion in the 1800's. Some were stillborn, others died in their infancy, some died of deceases in their childhood, and other just died because of accidents.  

Answer 7

Doctors, dentists, and midwives all did abortions. My father told me that his mother (my grandmother) and her friends referred to it as "a cleaning." (That would have been around 1910.) Given the unavailability and low efficacy of contraceptives at the time, abortion was used quite widely as a contraceptive.

Answer 8

Are you thinking about getting an abortion?

Answer 9

Coat hangers were common, also drinking turpentine, or throwing yourself down a flight of stairs I suppose.  There were small, illegal little places where she could get one.  One would hear about them from word of mouth.  None of these ways were safe however and they often ended in death.

Answer 10

Well, she would probally have to ask around discretly to doctors.

The doctors may or may not have done the precedure due to it being illegal.

The woman would be nocked out somehow, then opened up and have the baby taken out. It was very barbaric and dirty, they just sliced her open and  sewed her back up. Most women had severe long-term damage done or most likely died.

Why the thumbs down? That is an accurate and serious answer to the question, so if anything I deserve a thumbs up. =/

Answer 11

Wow women were crazy back them too? They probably made up some special way.

Answer 12

Some women believed that certain herbal remebies or toxins helped.  If you've ever read Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" there's something like that going on with one of the characters- she takes poisons to try and rid herself of the unborn baby, but it really only makes her sick.

Some women, quite literally, had the unborn baby torn out using a twisted up piece of metal- like a clothes hanger.  It was often times fatal.

Answer 13

I found this. It possibly seems to answer your questions.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/19th-cent...

Answer 14

My grandmother used to say that her cousin would abort embryos at the very early stages by jumping off the table and landing on her heels.  I don't know if that would work but she used to say that.  I've also heard of people drinking a tea made from the seeds of the prickly cucumber (or exploding cucumber) plant to induce an abortion.  I suggest you call an herbalist in your area and ask.  Also, go to the library and research it.

Answer 15

Many "wise women", herbalists or apothecaries would carry the herbs that seemed to encourage miscarriages, such as tansy and pennyroyal. The herbs would be made into a tea, or infusion, and taken by the patient, in the hopes of encouraging uterine contractions.

In the 1880s, the American Medical Association began a campaign to outlaw abortions, because to that point, most abortions had been carried out by laypeople such as midwives, apothecaries and homeopaths.  Fearing competition, they sponsored laws to make their actions "immoral and illegal", in favor of "safer" medical procedures.  Also, "protecting" women from unsafe procedures was also a way to control women -- or rather, control the ability of a woman to have children. Because of the difficulty in obtaining a "safe" abortion after this, many women turned to patent medicines Farrer's Catholic Pills, Hardy's Woman's Friend, Dr. Peter's French Renovating Pills, Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound,and Madame Drunette's Lunar Pills, which contained herbs and other abortion-inducing drugs.  Also, women used an amazing array of instruments to self-abort, including knitting needles, etc., whatever was seen as being able to dilate the cervix and scrape out the insides of the uterus. .  

Answer 16

i study into this years ago and it started in the east and wondered its way to the west but women subjected themselves to alot of pain to avoid the the embarrassing of a unwanted child from self beating to the abdomen to very crude insertions that would abort or (kill ) the unborn baby and it would be aborted