Abortion Cases of the 19th Century :: Essays Papers

Abortion Cases of the 19th CenturyAlthough abortions were very dangerous, as wellspring as socially unacceptable during the nineteenth century, women were not altogether futile to obtain abortions and many suffered accusations of infanticide. Here I pass on present a few of the more famous cases from the period, demonstrating the occurrence of abortion, the availability of providers, and the consequences organizationd by those who necessitated the procedure. One case that dominated the pages of The Revolution, the paper owned by Susan B. Anthony and edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury, was the sentencing of a young lady friend to hang for the death of her boor. opus not a case of abortion, the death was termed an infanticide and drew strong opinions from the populace as well as both the editors. The unfortunate Hester Vaughan, an English girl living in Philadelphia, was discovered in a tiny tenement room devoid of furniture February 8, 1868, forty-eight hours later on giving birth. simply during labor, without food or heat, she was found frail and feverish with her baby deathly beside her. She was immediately brought to the police and imprisoned, under the assumption that she had killed her child. For thirty dollars, she acquired the services of a lawyer by the name of Goforth and underwent a brief trial. Having never in reality confessed to committing the crime, she was nonetheless sentenced to death by County Judge Ludlow, and placed in Moyamensing prison until her execution. Once news of the case reached the public, the women of The Revolution unleashed their sympathies in article after article denouncing the indictment. In an August 6, 1868 editorial it was written If that poor child of sorrow is hung, it will be deliberate, downright murder. Her death will be far more horrible infanticide than was the killing of her child. She is the child of our society and civilization, beget and born of it, seduced by it, by the judge who p ronounced her sentence, by the obstacle and jury, by the legislature that enacted the law (in which because a woman, she had no vote or voice), by the church and the pulpit that sanctify the law and deeds, of all these will her blood, yea, and her virtue too, be required All these were the joint seducer, and now impinge on if by hanging her, they will also become her murderer.However, Hester never had to face the day of her execution and instead spent nearly two long time in jail.