The practice of abortion was not always legal in the United States. Before the Roe v. Wade court decision of 1973, women across the country seeked alternative and typically illegal methods to terminate their pregnancy, known as “back-alley” abortions. Although it is rumored that these abortions were performed by unlicensed unprofessionals, many of these abortions were performed illegally by physicians. Contrasting to a common myth, the term “back-alley” derives from how a woman was instructed to enter the doctor’s office, not to where these abortions were performed. Some desperate women sought to abort their pregnancies on their own. A well-known method of this was referred to as a “coat-hanger abortion”, where a woman would insert a wire coat
