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Professor Dehue says against it Fidelity that the abortion, forbidden at the time but tolerated, was performed after four months of pregnancy. At the time, the palace made it appear as if it were a spontaneous miscarriage.
‘induced abortion’
According to Dehue, emeritus professor of theory and history of psychology, things went differently. For the book ‘Ei, fetus, baby’ she researched news reports about the event in 1902, among other things. She discovered that overseas newspapers such as the Soerabaijasch Handelsblad reported on an ‘induced abortion’ that had saved the life of the Queen.
The newspapers mentioned a telegram that Wilhelmina’s husband Prince Hendrik had sent to his family in Germany. A telegram from the Reuters news agency said that the Queen’s cries of pain could be heard far beyond the palace. That is not consistent with a spontaneous miscarriage, Dehue claims.
Silk thread
The alleged abortion would have been unavoidable: Wilhelmina had contracted a typhoid infection, writes the emeritus professor. Especially in times when antibiotics were lacking, this was life-threatening for the child, but also for the mother.
According to her, the monarchy was hanging by a thread. “If Wilhelmina had died then, it would have come into German hands through one of her cousins.”
