Millennium Post (Kolkata)

Questionin­g the emitters

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Justice Samuel Alito appears spellbound by the 19th century. In Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisati­on, the decision Alito wrote overruling 50 years of constituti­onal protection for women’s right to get an abortion, he deploys arguments that are based on several historical precedents. He uses the phrase “history and tradition” regularly.

But for Alito, the 19th century looks like the true golden age: “In 1803, the British Parliament made abortion a crime at all stages of pregnancy and authorised the imposition of severe punishment.”

He goes on and on: “In this country during the 19th century, the vast majority of the States enacted statutes criminalis­ing abortion at all stages of pregnancy.”

“By 1868, the year when the 14 Amendment was ratified,” Alito concludes, “three-quarters of the States, 28 out of 37, had enacted statutes making abortion a crime.”

But in his rather selective forays into history, Alito doesn’t ask what to me, as a historian, constitute­s a set of fundamenta­l questions: Why was abortion eventually criminalis­ed during that time? What was the broad cultural and intellectu­al context of that period? And, more important, is there something peculiar about the 19th century?

As far as women’s bodies and abortion are concerned, the 19th century saw a decrease in the trust in, and power of, women themselves.

To begin with, 17th- and 18th-century legal authoritie­s Edward Coke, Matthew Hale and William Blackstone had all advocated for or condoned abortion. They fretted only when the procedure was carried out after “quickening,” the moment when the mother realises that the fetus moves in her womb, approximat­ely the fourth month of pregnancy.

As a medical procedure, abortion was widespread in Colonial and 18th-century America. By using more or less safe techniques, midwives and medical practition­ers performed many types of operations on their patients. The woman could easily die, of course; but when she sought an abortion, no social, legal or religious force would have blocked her.

Also, a woman could choose from many available remedies rather than have an operation. Derived from juniper bushes, “savin,” or Juniperus sabina, was one of the most popular abortifaci­ents. Other herbs and concoction­s were similarly taken: pennyroyal, tansy, ergot, Seneca snakeroot or cotton root bark.

Benjamin Franklin inserted an abortion recipe in a popular textbook he republishe­d in Philadelph­ia in 1748. He didn’t prompt any scandal.

The truth is that America’s founders, together with their contempora­ries, had a rather democratic understand­ing of the female body. They believed that women, physiologi­cally speaking, weren’t qualitativ­ely different from men; the two sexes were equal and complement­ary.

Men’s and women’s compositio­n, medical doctors argued, was identical in essence — the only difference was anatomical, in that male sexual organs were more externally distended than female organs.

Just like the male, the female was thought of as fully in control of the workings of her physiology, including her sexuality. It was believed that both the man and the woman had to reach orgasm, better if simultaneo­usly, for pregnancy to ensue.

This made 18th-century men attentive to the satisfacti­on of their female partners, though for utilitaria­n reasons.

Especially when sex was aimed at procreatio­n, the woman had to be as active as the male partner. The 18thcentur­y woman was active and in control. She trusted her bodily feelings, including her pleasures.

And crucially, only she could detect whether quickening had taken place in her womb. Consequent­ly, she could immediatel­y tell whether terminatin­g a pregnancy at a given time was acceptable. Or if it was a crime.

The 19th century changed all that. The understand­ing of physiology and the mechanisms of the female body underwent a deep transforma­tion. European and American doctors, now, saw women as essentiall­y different from men: From a “one body” model, the medical discourse shifted toward a “two body” model.

Women’s level of self-determinat­ion decreased accordingl­y. Suddenly, they were not only weaker or softer than men, but inherently passive, too. Instead of being encouraged to take part in sex, actively and with vigour, 19thcentur­y women were expected to be withdrawn.

They were thus recast as pure, chaste and modest. Commendabl­e women were virgins, wives, mothers. Or else they were prostitute­s, nearly criminals, which reflects the Victorian

dualistic mindset. Instead of being urged to trust the quickening and other physiologi­cal events happening in her womb or her vagina, the honest woman had to trust her doctor.

Anti-abortion campaigns began in earnest in the mid19th century. They were waged mostly by the American Medical Associatio­n, founded in 1847, and were fundamenta­lly anti-feminist. They chastised women for shunning the Victorian “self-sacrifice” expected of mothers.

Anti-abortion campaigns were targeted against midwives and tried to discredit women’s firsthand experience of pregnancy. Male doctors claimed pregnancy as a medical terrain — a realm that belonged to them exclusivel­y.

Based on women’s own bodily sensations — not on medical diagnosis — quickening was denigrated. Quickening, of course, made doctors dependent on women’s selfdiagno­sis and judgment.

Horatio R Storer, the leader of the medical campaigns against abortion, described quickening as “in fact but a sensation.” In such a context, it could no longer be framed as the basis from where all moral, social and legal standards emerged.

In the Dobbs decision, Alito says: “The Court finds that the right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition.” This is a historical fact: Protection of the right to abortion wasn’t around in America before Roe.

But it is also an incomplete picture of the full story. The criminalis­ation of abortion, plus the decentrali­sation of the woman’s experience, plus the medicalisa­tion of her feelings that led to that decision, are facets that belong to the longgone 19th century.

No American lives in that century any more — not even Justice Alito.

Views expressed are personal

During the 19th century, the understand­ing of physiology and the mechanisms of the female body underwent a deep transforma­tion

 ?? ?? Benjamin Franklin, centre, inserted an abortion recipe in a popular textbook he republishe­d in 1748
Benjamin Franklin, centre, inserted an abortion recipe in a popular textbook he republishe­d in 1748
 ?? ?? MAURIZIO VALSANIA
MAURIZIO VALSANIA

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