Women have been trying to end unwanted pregnancies since the dawn of history. Medieval punishments included burying him alive, stabbing the heart with a peg, or breaking it with a wheel. In the middle of the 19th century, it was punished with heavy imprisonment on Czech soil. In addition to punishment, many women do not even survive illegal abortions. For example, an angel practitioner injects lysoform, a cleaning agent for cleaning floors, into the womb of a female client. The goal is to induce inflammation that will expel the fetus.

First Republican gynecologists charged up to two thousand crowns for committing crimes at that time, which corresponded to up to four decent workers’ monthly salaries. Twenty crowns were enough for the angel girls.


The US Supreme Court overturned the abortion rights granted in the 1973 ruling. According to him, women across the US have the right to have an abortion until around the 23rd week of pregnancy.

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But sometimes the ladies didn’t even have twenty crowns. “In that case, women helped themselves, with the help of knitting needles or straightened hair clips. These cases are not unique,” wrote the famous Czech journalist Ferdinand Peroutka in the 1930s.

According to the World Health Organization, to date, up to 45 percent of all artificial abortions in the world are performed using the methods described above. “Each year, up to 13.2 percent of maternal deaths can be attributed to the consequences of unsafe abortion,” the organization said in its 2021 report.

The abortion rate in the Czech Republic is at an historical low today. This is evidenced by data from the Czech Statistical Office. In 2021, 28,000 pregnancies ended in abortion. At the request of the woman, that is, without health reasons, it is 15.5 thousand.