oursin: Illustration from medieval manuscript of the female physician Trotula of Salerno holding up a urine flask (trotula)
oursin ([personal profile] oursin) wrote in [personal profile] landofnowhere 2022-01-12 09:55 am (UTC)

On 'foeticide' - abortion at the time was illegal and dangerous (if you are interested I have an overview web article on Victorian abortion shortly forthcoming), and that tended to be the concern - the whole 'right to life' thing didn't really enter the debates until the 1967 Bill/Act.

Also, while there were keen proponents of Malthusian methods among the suffragists/ettes, there was also a strong feeling they should keep this cause quiet until the vote was won (there is a letter from Edith How-Martyn to Margaret Sanger early 1930s about women in Spain, the vote, and birth control, making that sort of point).

(And further on the politics of respectability, in the 1920s the advocates of birth control were, let's not mention abortion except to say, contraception will do away with the need.)

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