Unlocking the mysterious trunk: Nineteenth-century American criminal abortion narratives

Abstract

This chapter focuses on how nineteenth-century criminal abortion narratives aggrandized the authority of the American medical and legal systems by deploying technical “scientific” information, which granted these organizing professionals the social influence to control pregnancy termination and maintain its criminality until (1973). Known for their dramatic and moralistic language, these understudied cautionary narratives also functioned as disciplinary tools that regulated female sexuality and women’s control over their bodies by evoking fear of sexual intercourse outside of marriage, with death by criminal abortion serving as a major deterrent. Their effectiveness lay in their power as didactic instruments, as well as in their ability to illustrate how unrelenting police detective work and the scientific method of physicians were essential in unraveling criminal abortion cases.