Between Hostility and Sympathy: Abortionists on Trial at the Old Bailey, London c. 1823 – 1899.

Abstract

This thesis investigates cultural perceptions of abortionists in nineteenth century Britain, as understood by the cultural turn of the history of medicine. I use the 1861 Offences Against the Persons Act as a reference point to examine the extent to which attitudes to abortionists shifted from sympathy to condemnation as the century progressed, alongside increased legal, medical and popular differentiation between regulated and lay practitioners. I argue that this is not evident in the historical record, which shows that attitudes were more contradictory, and a chronological progression of changes in attitudes cannot be mapped so easily. These perspectives can be revealed through the cultural history of medicine which helps us understand complicated and inconsistent attitudes towards different practitioners, mediation, discursive representations of abortionists, and socially constructed attitudes to reproduction, abortion and abortionists. These were multivocal and fluid, and can be traced through official texts such as court cases, trials, and the popular press.