Confessions of an Abortion Doctor: Some Tragedy and Comedy

This book was published in 1939--before birth control. It is the first-person account of a young doctor who provided abortions to women.

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SOME TRAGEDY AND COMEDY

A young country girl was brought to me by her father.... She had no mother, and she had to work hard. Her father was a prosperous farmer, but it never occurred to him to hire a girl to do the housework while his daughter went to school.... Small town's are more snobbish than cities, because lines are more sharply visible. The daughters of the town's leading families sneered at Kate. And most of the other girls toadied to them. So she was deprived of the normal girl companionship of high-school....

She was so hungry for any sort of companionship that she proved a "pushover" for the small-town toughs. The high-school boys did not think it necessary to treat a "green country girl" with any respect or to ask her on regular dates and parties. One of the boys took her home one night from a play and "made" her. She was flattered because he came from a "good" family, and she was too dumb to realize that he was treating her like an unpaid prostitute. He had several similar "dates" with her, usually leaving her immediately after -- sometimes making her walk home. Presently she learned that she was pregnant.... The girl was diseased, too, and I refused to risk an abortion.

"I can cure the disease," I told her father. "Then perhaps you can send her away somewhere to have the child."

He grunted, and they left. Several days later I heard that the girl had hanged herself from a rafter in the barn loft.

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Read it at Bank Of Wisdom online library.

Tags: abortion