In pre-Roe Wisconsin, ‘illegal operations’ were common
Anna Boddy first met Edward Werner when she went to his Jackson Street apartment in Milwaukee.
It was Jan. 29, 1931. She was seeking an abortion.
Werner, who was performing between 50 and 60 abortions in Milwaukee per week, had already lost his license for performing an “illegal operation” on a woman in Oshkosh, according to newspaper clippings from 1931.
Boddy came back to Werner days later, this time “feeling desperately ill,” the article says, and “Werner is said to have told her to remain at his apartment that she might be under his constant observation.”
Boddy died the next morning. She was 23 years old.
Her death certificate would say she died of “heart disease” at an address in Shorewood that didn’t exist, the article says.
Werner was arrested five months later and charged with second-degree manslaughter in connection with Boddy’s
death. Minnie Wentland, a nurse, was charged too. She was “accused of having known the facts of the death and concealing them from authorities,” the article says.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973 gave federal protection to a person’s right to have an abortion. That decision, though, was still decades away when Boddy died and Werner was arrested.
With the decision now at risk of being overturned, doctors worry what the potential consequences could be if the public’s access to safe, legal abortions is lost.
“We’ve known it’s coming. We’ve been talking among ourselves saying how likely this would be, but still the news is just incredibly unsettling,” said
Appleton Post-Crescent USA TODAY NETWORK – WISCONSIN Providers worry about a loss of safe, legal abortions
Kristin Lyerly, an obstetrician and gynecologist at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Sheboygan.
The ability to legally perform abortions, despite past efforts to further restrict the practice in the state, has allowed doctors to provide compassionate, evidence-based care to patients, Lyerly said.
“That is what we can provide when abortion is legal and safe,” she said.
Lyerly’s whole career has taken place with the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion in place. If that decision is overturned, nearly all abortions would be outlawed in Wisconsin based on a law passed in 1849, a year after Wisconsin became a state.
There would be only one exception: If a doctor decides an abortion “is necessary, or is advised by two other physicians as necessary, to save the life of the mother.” The law would also make it possible for doctors who perform abortions to be charged with a crime and, if convicted, sent to prison for years.
Dr. Dennis Christensen performed his first abortion procedure five days after the Roe v. Wade decision. He doesn’t see patients anymore, but still serves as CEO of Affiliated Medical Services in Milwaukee, one of only four clinics in Wisconsin that provide abortions.
Christensen said many people on his staff are worried what the future might hold for their jobs, but also whether they could face time in prison.
“Nobody wants to go to jail, but we want to help women get the services they want,” he said. “A woman’s choice on how to manage her pregnancy is being sacrificed at the altar of politics.”
“Nobody wants to go to jail, but we want to help women get the services they want. A woman’s choice on how to manage her pregnancy is being sacrificed at the altar of politics.”
Dr. Dennis Christensen CEO of Affiliated Medical Services
Doctor ‘stunned’ by verdict
When Werner stood trial in Milwaukee for Boddy’s death in October 1931, it wasn’t his first encounter with the law.
In 1925, he was convicted of “an attempted illegal operation on an Oshkosh girl,” the Oshkosh Northwestern article says. He spent nine months in jail, paid a $500 fine and lost his medical license in what the article describes as “an abortion case.”
Before Werner’s trial for Boddy’s death, the woman’s body was exhumed and examined by a pathologist, who determined her death was the result of “blood poisoning, which developed after an operation,” according to an article published Aug. 5, 1931, in the Oshkosh Northwestern.
A series of articles about Werner’s trial were published in the Oshkosh Northwestern in late October 1931.
A witness who testified for the prosecution, Florence Margritz, said “50 to 60 illegal operations were performed a week before Mrs. Boddy died in the apartment.” Her comment was admitted as evidence despite objections by the defense.
Wentland, the nurse also charged with Boddy’s death, collapsed in a courthouse hallway, delaying her testimony. It wasn’t the first time it had happened: “She fainted yesterday and was treated last night at emergency hospital.”
The jury — nine men and three women — began to deliberate Werner’s fate about 12:30 p.m. Oct. 24, 1931. It reached a decision less than two hours later: Werner was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter.
“Werner appeared stunned by the verdict. He mumbled something about the jury ‘making a mistake.’ (Judge A. H. Reid) replied by saying the court was of the opinion that the jury had rendered a just decision.”
“You were convicted once before of a similar offense,” Reid said as he sentenced Werner.
“That’s a fact, isn’t it?”
The prosecution “demanded that the maximum penalty be imposed,” and Reid immediately sentenced Werner to four to seven years in prison.
Werner’s case wasn’t an anomaly. There had been articles written about doctors performing what newspapers repeatedly described as “illegal operations” for years before and after his case.
The owner of a pair of nightclubs near Sheboygan was questioned “concerning the death from an illegal operation” of a girl — a performer — whose body was found in the Chicago apartment of a former Milwaukee doctor, according to an article published Jan. 9, 1933, in The Post-Crescent.
That same year, a 70-year-old doctor was arrested in Milwaukee and accused of performing an “illegal operation” on a woman who later had to be hospitalized with an illness. The doctor had already spent four years in prison about a decade earlier “for the death of the baby of one of the women upon whom he had operated,” according to an article published Dec. 8, 1933, in The Post-Crescent.
And it didn’t happen only in Wisconsin’s larger communities: a 60-year-old woman in Harrison, a town in Calumet County, pleaded guilty to “performing an illegal operation” at her home and was sentenced to four to five years in prison, according to an article published April 1, 1938, in The Post-Crescent.
‘No safeguards’
If nearly all abortions are outlawed in Wisconsin in the near future, it is not likely to lead to a surge in doctors performing “back-alley abortions,” Lyerly said.
“I think that we will see people turning to creative means to provide this care for themselves or for each other,” she said.
The most likely scenario, Lyerly said, will be “women trying to manage their situations based on what they read off of the internet or what a friend tells them.”
“If that is the case, there are no safeguards,” she said.
Many things have changed about abortion treatment over the years: advancements in contraceptives, diagnostic tools for early pregnancy detection and, for now and if patients can afford it, access to abortion clinics in other states, Christensen said.
Christensen said no matter what happens if Roe is overturned, women will still seek out abortions. The difference will be between trained and untrained providers. The full program of teaching obstetrics, he said, would be incomplete.
“We are going to have a problem in Wisconsin, as far as providing medical training for our students,” Christensen said. “If it’s illegal at the state level, it’s illegal in medical school.”
If a woman dies from a mishandled abortion, Lyerly said, it’s important to remember what she leaves behind: a family, a community and, often, children.
“This does not just impact that woman,” she said. “This impacts everyone in her life.”