people are cynical about such behavior, that’s understandable. But there are also reasons to believe that Maria was in poor health. She had gone through an extreme medical procedure that she had been advised not to undertake. The operation was performed on a floor. Madame Restell did not so much as wash her hands before plunging them inside a woman to extract and dispose of a six-month-old fetus. An abortion well into the second trimester would be much more arduous for the patient than one performed earlier.
