Illegal Operations: Women, Doctors, and Abortion, 1886-1939

Abstract

In Canada a social historian from the University of Victoria uses legal records from inquests and trials of 100 women who tried to induce a miscarriage to examine the decision-making process of women who chose to terminate a pregnancy in the late 1800s and early 1900s in British Columbia. During this period the government and medical professionals became interested in fertility control decisions of both women and men. The law which made abortions illegal placed the welfare of women encumbered with unwanted pregnancies at risk. The law did not hold physicians liable for performing an abortion needed to protect the life of the mother. The study has uncovered law induced biases inherent in court records. First the courts tended to only hear cases of unsuccessful abortion attempts. Further these women generally represented the most unfortunate and desperate cases of abortion attempts. 75% of these women died. Second court records minimized the role of the men involved. Third physiciand usually ignored an abortion case which jeopardized the standing of their hospital or their colleagues so medical testimony was rarely found in court records. Finally lawyers wrote legal records for other lawyers so they knew or were soon told what they had to say; therefore the truth was not recorded. They used ritualized assertions. Physicians used the abortion law to preserve their professions monopolization of the provision of medical services. For example convicted abortionists were almost always midwives masseuses and herbalists. The law also helped the courts through the press warn women of the terrible abortion deaths and police the morality of both sexes. Abortion trials exhibiting conspicuous evidence of class and gender inequities defended the social and sexual status quo.