Nearly 100 years later, a family remembers an illegal abortion that ended in tragedy

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/22/ [login to see] /nearly-100-years-later-a-family-remembers-an-illegal-abortion-that-ended-in-trag
Leana McClellan never got a chance to meet her grandmother. But she knows the story of her grandmother's abortion. It was 1925, and Elizabeth Apotheker Kannerstein had just married.

"Within the first three months of their marriage, she got pregnant," says Leana McClellan. "And he was 23 and in law school, and couldn't support them. So they decided that she should have an abortion."

In 1925, that meant an illegal abortion. Lauren MacIvor Thompson teaches about the intersection of women's rights, medicine, and public health at Georgia's Kennesaw State University. She says that a hundred years ago — like today — access to abortion was stratified by race, class, and location. The quality of care was limited by what people could find, and what they could afford. Even information was hard to come by.

"Women were really reliant on familial networks, whisper networks, you know — having a cup of coffee at the kitchen table to find out what the options were," explains MacIvor Thompson. "And because it's criminalized, there's no regulation, there's no guarantee."