Criminal Intimacy: Colorado’s complicated history with abortion

Criminal Intimacy is a limited series podcast by Abby O’Brien that explores Colorado’s complicated history with abortion. It tells the story of two women in 1870s Colorado — one with a tragic fate and one who took the blame. Fredericka Baun died in 1871 following an abortion, and Dr. Mary Solander, one of Colorado’s earliest known female doctors, was found guilty of manslaughter for Fredericka’s death.

Fredericka Baun had been impregnated by Clements Knauss, a man she was seeing out of wedlock, who did not want the child.

Baun sought care from Mary Solander, who was a physician in the area. A few days after the procedure, Solander was called back to Baun’s bedside. Fredericka Baun died from a uterine hemorrhage. Mary Solander was charged with manslaughter.

Solander was convicted of manslaughter in a drawn-out case that went all the way to Colorado’s Supreme Court, and she became the second woman imprisoned in the Colorado State Penitentiary.

“ I found out about these two women by volunteering for Historic Boulder. They do a great event every other year called Meet the Spirits, and it usually takes place in Columbia Cemetery,” said O’Brien.

“Basically, they have folks volunteering to be actors and dress up as the people buried there and stand next to the gravestone, and you can go around and talk to them and learn about their history. And so I volunteered to be one of those actors, and they told me about Fredericka Baun, who nobody had ever portrayed in that event before, who was buried there. Her story was so intriguing to me that I really needed to find out more. As you’ll hear in the piece, she’s in an unmarked grave, so she doesn’t have a headstone. You wouldn’t know she’s there. But her story’s really fascinating and it kind of became an obsession for me.”

The series looks at attitudes about abortion in 1870s Colorado, and attitudes towards female doctors. It also draws a thread to present day abortion laws and changes to reproductive rights happening at a federal level.

“Although abortion is pretty protected in Colorado today, I think it’s important to trace that lineage back and look at where we came from and how we got here,” said O’Brien.

“I talked in the piece with Gina Martinez Valentín of the Colorado Doula Project about how even though abortion providers in Colorado may not be afraid of criminalization in their home state, there’s attacks coming from all over. Even just threats. People might feel stigma around abortion, and that of course shapes how we can or can’t get abortions. So yeah, it was really interesting to draw those parallels, and I hope that people listening to it will be able to also do a little bit of thinking about those parallels and where we want to go from here.” 

Listen to Criminal Intimacy Part 1 — The Death: The scandalous circumstances of a woman’s death.

Listen to Criminal Intimacy Part 2 — The Trial: 150 years ago, this criminal case was the talk of the town in Boulder.

Listen to Criminal Intimacy Part 3 — The Legacy: How will Fredericka and Mary be remembered?

Listen to a conversation with Abby O’Brien and Dr. Rebecca Cohen, a Denver OB-GYN, about the current landscape of reproductive rights in Colorado and across the country. The segment aired on KGNU on Thursday, Aug. 7, at 9 a.m.