HMMM, INTERESTING STATISTIC... While reading the indomitable Mark Shea's blog, I came across this link to the Straight Dope's debunking of the oft-cited 10,000 dead a year from illegal abortions pre-Roe statistic. Scrolling down, I found this interesting nugget:

For 1972, the last full year before Roe, the federal Centers for Disease Control reported that 39 women died due to illegal abortion. (The death total for all abortions, including legal ones, was 88.) That figure is low, thanks to underreporting, but in any case the number of deaths had been dropping sharply for the previous few years.

So, I understand that underreporting would probably drive down the illegal abortion numbers farther than the legal ones. But still: if we pretend the CDC numbers are good for a second, that means more women died from legal abortions in 1972 than from illegal ones.