Question: why did alice tell pamela not to use exlax or wire hangers?

Question
In almost alice, why did alice tell pamela not to use exlax or wire hangers?

PHYLLIS Replied:
Sometimes pregnant women or girls who didn’t plan to have a baby, and who could not afford an abortion, would try to abort the fetus themselves, making a long hook out of a coat hanger to try to dig up into the womb from the vagina, or by taking a lot of laxative and hoping that all the intestinal movement would somehow cause a miscarriage. Many deaths have occurred from women and girls trying to induce an abortion themselves