Dr. Josephine Gabler (January 16, 1879 – June 13, 1961) was a physician best known for performing illegal abortionsinChicago, serving the entire Midwest, during the 1930s.
Gabler graduated from medical school in 1905 and was licensed to practice that year; by the late 1920s, she had begun to specialize in abortion. Gabler and the other doctors at her clinic performed more than 18,000 abortions between 1932 and 1941, or approximately five a day. Patients were referred by their physicians, or sometimes heard about the clinic from friends or relatives. Information about the clinic comes from seventy patient records preserved in legal documents.[1] In 1941, police raided Gabler's clinic, and confiscated her patient records. These records indicated that over 200 Chicago physicians had been sending patients to her clinic for abortion procedures.[2]
In the 1920s and 30s, on State Street in downtown Chicago, Gabler specialized in abortions in a time of great repression. She recognized that more women were moving into the working world, and she provided a service to them that allowed women reproductive independence.[1] On another note, she broke the law, and was arrested. Gabler was a significant player in women's health by providing abortions in accordance with standard medical procedures during a time where the number of abortions occurring in the United States ranged from 250,000 to 2 million per year.[2]
