The history of abortion is a history of control: women trying to control their own bodies, men trying to control women’s bodies, churches trying to control men’s and women’s sexual morality, and the state trying to control the civic and moral order of society. For this reason, historians have often focused on the control of abortion practices and their evolution over time.
Beginning with the story of a singer in ancient Greece, this work differs by attempting to understand the women who sought abortions, and the men and women who assisted them. In each chapter a selection of such stories elucidates the socio-cultural meaning of abortion at a particular time.
For example, termination “miracles” in early Christian Ireland – the ending of pregnancies by figures such as St Brigid or St Ciarán – provide the context for a discussion of medieval attitudes to the practice.
Despite the medieval church’s increasing efforts to regulate sexual behaviour, medical texts continued to include and describe abortifacient plants, the knowledge and use of which was widespread since antiquity and would continue into the 20th century.
Mary Fissell’s work is also strong on the socio-cultural context and its impact on evolving attitudes to abortion. The meaning of an abortion for women in different social situations has always varied, depending on whether they were married or single, rich or poor, slaves or free. Similarly, what has been deemed wrong about abortion has changed throughout history.
In the 16th century, abortion “signified the grave threat that single women’s sexuality posed […] during the upheavals of the Reformation”. Later, in American slave states, abortion was “a property crime, depriving a slaver of potential chattel”.
During the first wave of US feminism, the anti-abortion movement, led by doctors, targeted married middle-class white Americans who restricted the size of their families through abortion and contraception, while the “wrong kind of Americans” (immigrants, often from Ireland and Italy) were having too many children.
In modern times, the US has been a bellwether for abortion access, which makes the current illiberal revolution stateside a concern for many. This history, written with great empathy, is an important and timely reminder of the need for vigilance as we witness the erosion of human rights to privacy and the control of reproductive autonomy.
James Hanrahan is Associate Professor in French at Trinity College Dublin
