I decided to focus my attention on a very specific category, abortion. This category falls under ‘Sex’ as a preliminary category. The ‘Abortion’ category is broken up into two subcategories: cases & opinions.
Now, I most certainly realize the stigma that goes along with abortion, and after going through these readings, it has become abundantly clear that this stigma has always existed to some degree. I feel as though, despite the progress that has been made over the past 120 years or so, the stigma around abortions still holds true.
In the article, “‘The Conjugal Relationships as regards Personal Health & Hereditary Well-being”, written by Augustus K Gardner in 1894, abortion is talked about as the most unholy of acts.
Gardner writes:
Of all the sins, physical and moral, against man and God, I know of none so utterly to be condemned as the very common one of the destruction of the child while yet in the womb of the mother. So utterly repugnant is it, that I can scarcely express the loathing with which I approach the subject. Murder! Murder in cold blood, without cause, of an unknown child; one’s nearest relative; in fact, part of one’s very being; actually having, not only one’s own blood in its being, but that blood momentarily interchanging! Good God! Does it seem possible that such depravity can exist in a parent’s breast-in a mother’s heart!
(Gardner 1894)
Now, granted that this piece is an opinion piece, and not a genuine case, but nonetheless, this belief was not uncommon amongst the people at the time. Abortion was not declared legal in England until 1967. In the United States, a woman was not allowed to choose until 1973.
Upon finishing the article, which is a complete reiteration of this opening paragraph, it became increasingly clear that the notion of abortion at the time was extreme taboo (which is, again, to be expected). It was viewed as digesting and an act against God.
After reading the opinions section of the abortion section on the website, I turned my attention towards actual case studies.
In the city of Lambeth, in 1853, a case was brought up against three doctors, Mr. Charles Cunningham, alias Smith, Mr. James Thompson Currie, and Mr. George Thomas (The Times 1853). In this case, the doctors were brought before a judge with charges indicating that these men were performing illegal abortions in the city, a crime punishable for (according to the article) for up to 15 years in jail.
After reading through opinions and the case study, it has become increasingly clear that women had no control over their bodies, and this notion did not change for over 100 years after this case study and opinion piece.
http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm
It’s interesting how strongly Gardner declares against the act of abortion in the article. In the police reports concerning a woman attempting to destroy the evidence of bearing a child, it was spoken about in such a flippant degree. Granted it is a federal report, but I found it shocking there wasn’t a stronger sense of dislike in the tone of the officer answering the questions.
Your attention on actual cases was definitely helpful in accompanying an opinion piece, it really provides a mindset of prosecutors in the cases involving abortion.
It isn’t surprising to me at all that they were just as vehemently against abortion back then as people are today. Granted, we have it legalized today in the United States thanks to Roe v. Wade but abortion rights are constantly under attack by our lawmakers for the same religious views that were held in the Victorian age- that abortion was an act against God.