Abortion is a topic that has been argued both for, and against, for hundreds of years; nowadays the argument is pro-life versus pro-choice. The article that I read on Lee Jackson’s “Victorian Dictionary” is basically a very long rant that negates the practice of abortions. Augustus Gardiner, a physician in 1894, is the author of such an article. From the very first line we see his viewpoint on the topic of abortion; “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.” The article then goes on to talk about all the places in the world that practice infanticide and the reasons for such a practice. He mentions places like Greece and China and Sparta, places that practice infanticide due to deformities or religious practices, etc. These places are meant to serve as juxtaposition to England because the women in England were getting abortions due to “selfish” reasons. Gardiner states that the women would rather face “the heinousness of the sin; the possibility of death immediate and painful; the likelihood of prolonged illness and future debility; [and] the chance of a blighted being constantly before the sight…” rather than have their children. Gardiner really plays on the ethos of the people of the time by focusing on the fact that killing a child is an act against God.

The only credibility Gardiner has is that fact that he is an actual physician who probably encounters women seeking abortions on a daily basis. Unfortunately, it is known that the Victorian era was a time when women were seen as property whose only real purpose was bearing children and staying at home to cook and clean and raise those same children. Though I am not condoning abortions, I feel as though the women who were brave enough to seek abortions or even desperate enough to attempt to do it themselves were really women speaking out and taking back a piece of themselves that was given away the second they said, “I do.” Gardiner also contradicts himself at times. He states, “we can forgive the poor, deluded girl-seduced, betrayed, abandoned-who, in her wild frenzy, destroys the mute evidence of her guilt…But for the married shirk, who disregards her divinely ordained duty, we have nothing but contempt…” If abortion were truly evil then wouldn’t it make sense that it would be a sin to every woman who had one? Not just the married ones? This quote further supports my idea that his real anger is directed at the married women who did not really exist in the eyes of the law and of men.

Works Cited

“Victorian London – Sex – Abortion – Opinions.” The Conjugal Relationships as Regards Personal Health & Hereditary Well-being. Victorian London Dictionary.  Web. 14 February 2016.

Lee Jackson’s Abortion Article: Here