"The "back alley butcher" is the dominant image that has been used by supporters and opponents of abortion-to describe abortions in the pre-Roe era. The term is often used synonymously with "criminal abortionist." These phrases, used to refer both to medical and lay providers, evoke greedy, incompetent, and exploitative individuals, who often injured their patients, sometimes sexually abused them, and occasionally, due to their ineptness, even killed them."

(Forward) Doctors of Conscience, by Carole Joffe
Professor of sociology, University of California at Davis