Angus McLaren

The articles purpose is to use legal sources to explore the decision to abort while the state, and the professions took a serious interest in the fertility control decisions of women. What is being argued is the fate of women burdened with unwanted pregnancies whose well-being was placed at risk by the law.

Midwives, herbalists, and masseuses performed most abortions. Therefore, most of these people were convicted. Most women supported other abortionists, but in some cases women would accuse others of aborting or attempting to abort. McLaren argues that abortions came only to the attention of authorities when something went wrong. This supports her feelings that women’s well-being was jeopardized around this part

McLaren accuses doctors of neglecting women who wanted to abort because of the responsibility that came with the operation. All doctors couldn’t legally perform the operation; other professionals and the law would accuse them heavily. That’s why McLaren makes it clear that doctors, regardless of their moral beliefs, wouldn’t risk performing the operation because it might tarnish their reputation. Because methods of contraception were expensive and not readily accessible, many pregnancies were unwanted. Therefore women used these excuses as their defence.

The author supports her argument by providing a detailed description of factual cases that occurred during the mid 1800’s to mid 1900’s. However, the author fails to focus on why the pregnancies were “unwanted.” Sure methods of contraception were not easily accessible, so in turn more pregnancies were unwanted. Of course we see that doesn’t apply to today. Today, contraception is very much encouraged, but the numbers of unwanted pregnancies still continue to grow. So the idea that contraception is not accessible is no real excuse. McLaren also use

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