Paper Title
Aborted Justice: Abortion Rings, Victimhood, and the Law in California During The New Deal
Start Date
12-6-2011 9:30 AM
End Date
12-6-2011 12:00 PM
Subject Areas
North America, bodies, motherhood, politics, reproduction, sexuality, violence
Abstract
During the decades prior to Roe. v. Wade (1973), in California abortions took place in a variety of spaces ranging from doctor’s offices to private residences. While some procedures were legally protected under the “therapeutic abortion” nomenclature of a doctor’s expertise, many were not. Police crackdowns often led to sensational media depictions of “abortion rings” that traversed not only the state, but also crossed national borders into Mexico. The focus of these busts, and their subsequent media coverage, often centered on the providers of these abortion procedures as the perpetrator and painted the woman receiving the abortion as the victim in the crime. Abortion rings were often associated with mobsters, and more often than not an abortionist would be found guilty of tax evasion or racketeering, rather than the crime of performing the procedure. So what were “abortion rings” – sensationalist media concoctions, ill-trained butchers, small business owners, organized crime, or doctors of conscience? Often their dealings were based on structured networks of commerce that operated in a twilight world of healthcare professionals and illegal activities. As a result, constructions of “victim,” “crime,” and “perpetrator” were often muddied depending on the social positions of the various persons involved. This paper seeks to tease out these contradictions and illustrate how illegal abortion practices were prosecuted, in both the law and the media.
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Aborted Justice: Abortion Rings, Victimhood, and the Law in California During The New Deal
During the decades prior to Roe. v. Wade (1973), in California abortions took place in a variety of spaces ranging from doctor’s offices to private residences. While some procedures were legally protected under the “therapeutic abortion” nomenclature of a doctor’s expertise, many were not. Police crackdowns often led to sensational media depictions of “abortion rings” that traversed not only the state, but also crossed national borders into Mexico. The focus of these busts, and their subsequent media coverage, often centered on the providers of these abortion procedures as the perpetrator and painted the woman receiving the abortion as the victim in the crime. Abortion rings were often associated with mobsters, and more often than not an abortionist would be found guilty of tax evasion or racketeering, rather than the crime of performing the procedure. So what were “abortion rings” – sensationalist media concoctions, ill-trained butchers, small business owners, organized crime, or doctors of conscience? Often their dealings were based on structured networks of commerce that operated in a twilight world of healthcare professionals and illegal activities. As a result, constructions of “victim,” “crime,” and “perpetrator” were often muddied depending on the social positions of the various persons involved. This paper seeks to tease out these contradictions and illustrate how illegal abortion practices were prosecuted, in both the law and the media.