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
Susanne M. Klausen is Professor of History at Carleton University, Ottawa.
"Her monograph Abortion Under Apartheid: Nationalism, Sexuality,
and Women's Reproductive Rights in South Africa presents the first
scholarly study of the history of abortion in any African country.
It is meticulously researched, using a wide variety of sources, and
yet is accessible in style. In eight chapters, it demonstrates the
centrality of the regulation of women's reproductive bodies to the
making and maintenance of Apartheid in South Africa
from 1948 to 1990, situating the struggle over abortion in the
context of disciplining whites' sexuality as part of the ongoing
ideological work of justifying white supremacist rule." -- Waltraud
Maierhofer,
Feminist Review
"The history of abortion and, indeed, of reproductive rights more
broadly has received relatively little attention in African
contexts. Susanne Klausen's study of abortion under apartheid is
therefore both welcome and significant. Using interviews and a
range of documentary sources, the book examines how the apartheid
state sought to control women's and girls' bodies and reproductive
choices through the enforcement of restrictive abortion laws and
the promotion
of a patriarchal Christian Afrikaner culture, and, crucially, the
ways in which women and girls defied these restrictions....This is
a passionately argued, sensitive book, which lays a foundation
for
future research on abortion in South Africa and the broader
region."--Sacha Hepburn, Journal of Southern African Studies
"Susanne Klausen's moving and timely book sheds powerful light on
the interplay of abortion policy and the defence of white male
supremacy in apartheid South Africa....Klausen aims [to write] a
rich enhancement of our empirical knowledge about the role of
abortion in South African history, and a compelling theoretical
argument to extend gender and sexuality studies into mainstream
scholarship. She ably succeeds in both these aims, drawing upon a
wide range of
sources including newspapers, memoirs, court transcripts, official
documents, and interviews with some of the key players in the
struggles mostly from the 1960s to eighties. These sources evoke
the
tumble of emotions experienced by the victims of cruel laws and
harsh social judgements, the passion of activists in the struggle
for women's rights, and the often rank hypocrisy of those appointed
to police the morality of the nation."--Marc Epprecht, Histoire
sociale
"This study makes a powerful case that concerns over restricting
abortion were about policing women's bodies within a conservative
patriarchal community in order to maintain its reputation, one is
tempted to say, 'honour'. It is distressing to learn from the
conclusion that although a very liberal law was passed by the
African National Congress government in 1996, clandestine abortion
remains ubiquitous in South Africa for complex reasons including
continuing
stigmatising attitudes, lack of resources, and inadequate public
health education."--Leslie Hall, Women's History Review
"Drawing on a compelling range of sources, including novels,
popular press stories, oral history interviews, medical journals,
and university and hospital records, Klausen argues that white,
South African social elites vehemently opposed abortion as part of
their wider obsession with the sanctity of the so-called white
race....South African historiography has tended to focus on either
white or black South Africans, given that apartheid actively worked
to divide
these populations. By contrast, Klausen here includes black and
white women's experiences with abortion. In doing so, she
demonstrates the entanglements of racism and its effects on white
and black
life in South Africa."--Rachel Sandwell, Journal of the History of
Medicine and Allied Sciences
"Susanne M. Klausen should be commended for writing a book that is
compelling, timely, and highly original...In this elegantly written
narrative, Klausen explains that gender and sexuality were just as
important as race or class to the construction and maintenance of
the apartheid system...There is much to appreciate about this book.
Besides being innovative and very well researched, the book is
written in accessible language. The author is a gifted
storyteller
who has the ability to captivate her audience through her engaging
prose. She helps us realize that this is a story that is much
larger than 'just' abortion. Indeed, it is a story of
nation-building
and of state collapse, one that is painfully written on the bodies
of women...It is certainly not one to be missed."--Alicia C.
Decker, American Historical Review
"Abortion Under Apartheid is a beautifully written,
multi-dimensional, and convincingly argued examination of women's
reproductive choices under the South African apartheid
regime."--The Canadian Commission on Women's History Book Prize
"The author does not keep her sharp analysis hermetically sealed
off from global and colonial forces. She is alert to the wider
historiography, to the intersection of race and class, of
masculinity and women's reproductive rights. She has trolled
through dozens of newspapers, a dozen archives, conducted multiple
interviews, and like every good historian, read almost every single
secondary source on her subject. The reader will be pulled into an
engaging,
riveting and horrifying set of stories, one in which vulnerable
human beings, professionals and activists are caught in a vortex of
cultural and gendered politics....Here are the stories of courage
and
victimization of both black and white couched in the politics of a
regime in its death throes."--Chris Youe, Canadian Association of
African Studies, on behalf of the Joel Gregory Prize Committee
"This meticulously researched volume helps redress the privileging
of race and class, together with a persistent gender blindness, in
much South African historiography on apartheid. In this powerful
and clearly argued study of the apartheid politics of fertility,
Klausen shows how Afrikaner nationalism was persistently active in
its attempts to control women's sexuality...Klausen provides
complex and sympathetic accounts of the experiences of women of all
races
caught up in this nightmare world..."--Anne Digby, Social History
of Medicine
"This meticulously researched landmark study by Susanne M. Klausen
explores the complex ways in which interlinked ideologies
concerning race, gender and sexuality underpinned the restrictions
placed by the South African apartheid state on women's access to
reproductive rights, in particular to safe abortion....The book is
written in an engaging, accessible style, although the subject
matter makes for disturbing reading at times. Klausen
shows....that, while
abortion legislation in contemporary South Africa is amongst the
most progressive in the world, for many South African women access
to safe, affordable abortion remains a challenge, and Klausen calls
for
'the struggle for reproductive rights' to be 'connected to the
broader struggle for social justice and human rights' (p. 218). It
is a call which should resonate with everyone who reads this
troubling but important book."--The English Historical Review
"This wonderful book on a controversial topic, composed by one of
the leading scholars of gender and health in recent South African
history, begins with a simple premise: the illegality of abortion
in Apartheid South Africa did not result in a dearth of
terminations. Instead, Klausen argues that the history of women's
health is heavily informed and indeed constructed by the experience
of women and their practitioners dealing with the ramifications of
abortion's
illegality. Klausen implores us to look at this period as one
during which abortion and its aftermaths were central to the
history of women's health, even as it appears absent from the
public record.
In so doing, we are forced to reorient the conceptualization of
women's health in South Africa, and to rethink the centrality of
gender to histories of health more generally."--Canadian Bulletin
of Medical History
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