Abortion Under Apartheid - Susanne M. Klausen

Abortion Under Apartheid

Nationalism, Sexuality, and Women's Reproductive Rights in South Africa
Buch | Softcover
344 Seiten
2019
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-093987-8 (ISBN)
32,95 inkl. MwSt
Abortion Under Apartheid examines the criminalization of abortion in South Africa during apartheid (1948-1990) and its impact on women of all "races" determined to terminate unwanted pregnancies. It also traces the emergence of a movement for abortion law reform and the 1975 passage of South Africa's first statutory law on abortion.
Abortion Under Apartheid examines the politics of abortion in South Africa during the apartheid era (1948-1990), when termination of pregnancy was criminalized. It analyzes the flourishing clandestine abortion industry, the prosecution of medical and "backstreet" abortionists, and the passage in 1975 of the country's first statutory law on abortion. Susanne M. Klausen reveals how ideas about sexuality were fundamental to apartheid culture and shows that the authoritarian National Party government - alarmed by the spread of "permissiveness" in white society - attempted to regulate white women's reproductive sexuality in the interests of maintaining white supremacy.

A major focus of the book is the battle over abortion that erupted in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when doctors and feminists, inspired by international developments, called for liberalization of the colonial-era common law that criminalized abortion. The movement for legal reform spurred a variety of political, social, and religious groups to grapple with the meaning of abortion in the context of changing ideas about the traditional family and women's place within it. Abortion Under Apartheid demonstrates that all women, regardless of race, were oppressed under apartheid. Yet, although the National Party was preoccupied with denying young, unmarried white women reproductive control, black girls and women bore the brunt of the lack of access to safe abortion, suffering the effects on a shocking scale.

At the heart of the story are the black and white girls and women who-regardless of hostility from partners, elders, religious institutions, nationalist movements, conservative doctors and nurses, or the government-persisted in determining their own destinies. Although a great many were harmed and even died as a result of being denied safe abortions, many more succeeded in thwarting opponents of women's right to control their capacity to bear children. This book conveys both the tragic and triumphant sides of their story.

Susanne M. Klausen is Professor of History at Carleton University, Ottawa.

Acronyms
Introduction
Chapter 1: "I'd Never Had Pain Like That - A Searing, Dying Agony":
Racialized Clandestine Abortion
Chapter 2: "South Africa is Experiencing an All-Out Attack by Permissiveness":
Communism, Immorality and the Disintegration of Apartheid Culture
Chapter 3: "My Uterus Belongs To Me":
The Campaign for Abortion Law Reform
Chapter 4: "The Trial the World is Watching":
The Crichton-Watts Trial, 1972
Chapter 5: "Subjected to Relentless and Grueling Cross-Examination":
The Crichton-Maharaj Trial, 1973
Chapter 6: "Reclaiming the White Daughter's Purity":
The Passage of the Abortion and Sterilization Act, 1975
Chapter 7: "The Actual Matter is With Us Whites":
Abortion and the "Black Peril"
Chapter 8: "The Law is a Total Failure:"
Abortion from 1975 to the End of Apartheid
Conclusion
Appendix: The Abortion and Sterilization Act (1975)
Bibliography

Erscheinungsdatum
Zusatzinfo 9 illus.
Verlagsort New York
Sprache englisch
Maße 234 x 156 mm
Gewicht 481 g
Themenwelt Geschichte Allgemeine Geschichte Zeitgeschichte
Geisteswissenschaften Geschichte Regional- / Ländergeschichte
Geschichte Teilgebiete der Geschichte Kulturgeschichte
ISBN-10 0-19-093987-7 / 0190939877
ISBN-13 978-0-19-093987-8 / 9780190939878
Zustand Neuware
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