Types of Abortion

Sauer (1978) found that some pregnancies in the 19th century were desperately unwanted by woman. Because of this, desperate measures such as baby farming, infanticide and abortion were carried out to discard of the pregnancy. Abortion, which is the termination of a human pregnancy, was made illegal in 1803, but was still carried out in the backstreets of Britain (Knight 1977). However, only a few cases were brought to attention as according to Latham (2002), there was difficulty in detecting abortion, yet Bulwer- Lytton (1833 as cited in Sauer 1978) still believed abortion took place frequently in towns for reasons such as illegitimacy.
Illegitimacy was just one of the reasons on why abortion was carried out and according to Macfarlane (2002), who believed illegitimacy was a burden, and the child was seen as “The bastard, like the prostitute, thief and beggar…a living symbol of social irregularity”. Women feared of being degraded and losing their social status within society, and they would willingly kill their own child to forget the existence of illegitimate children, so it was no surprise woman would go through with abortion so they would still be accepted within society. Extreme poverty was also a reason as many parents and woman could barely feed themselves, much less another child (Sauer 1978). Knight (1977) also argued that in the 19th century was when depression hit so both working class and middle class could not afford children.
The ways in which a woman could have an abortion were high in numbers. According to Knight (1977), woman could purchase medicines and drugs at a chemist to acquire an abortion, drugs such as quinine. There was also a number of cases of lead poisoning, as a doctor had seen 100 cases of it from 18...

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... 19th century abortion was one of the most popular ways to deal with unwanted pregnancies even though illegal. With the fact that both men and woman, even married woman would take it up as a profession gives the idea that it was a well-paid job and because of the high demand, it was a profession that was most likely worth getting in to. Even though legislation was put into place to deal with the doing of abortion, it was still hard to catch a case as it was hard to prove with the lack of health care in the 19th century. Woman wanted abortions which gives the answer to why abortionists did the job and with the use of herbs, drugs and instruments how the abortion was done. Legislation helped to catch some people who had abortions and had it as a profession, but not many cases were brought to light as it mostly happened in the backstreets hidden from the law.