Regarding: "If returned to back alley clinics..."
- The statistical facts of the number of abortions in the USA prior to Roe V Wade illustrate the difficulties in tracking something that is illegal.  That is; in a region were abortions are illegal; if your are a licensed medical professional performing abortions then to whom would your report and why would you do so?
- Perhaps the overwhelming concern about illegal abortions was and is that they all to often were done with wire coat hangers, knitting needles, and medicines that were abortifacients. For instance circa 1900,  medicinals which were sold to return a women to her 'regular cycle' were in effect abortifacients.
- Statistical evidence of  illegal abortions in those days were gleaned from hospital records of women coming to hospitals with sepsis, chronic bleeding, or damaged uteri. They also came from death certificates of women wherein the coroner would note the cause of death.