Overview

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 abortion, 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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Susanne M. Klausen (Associate Professor of History, Carleton University, Ottowa)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 16.20cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 24.20cm
Weight:   0.624kg
ISBN:  

9780199844494

ISBN 10:   0199844496
Pages:   344
Publication Date:   06 November 2015
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

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

Reviews

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 ...This book would work well in an undergraduate classroom because it has a clear narrative arc. Students of African history, political science, and women's/gender studies will appreciate the complex description of apartheid South Africa, as well as African gender politics more generally. The book will also appeal to historians of modern Africa, as well as scholars of global women's, gender, and sexuality studies. It is certainly not one to be missed. * Alicia C. Decker, American Historical Review * Susanne Klausen has combed archival sources - some never before used - and interviewed several of the principles, adding a new dimension to the debates over reproductive rights in South Africa in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Of great interest is her contention that the South African case fits into the contemporary global situation. In the postwar period, South Africa repeatedly moved in a more conservative direction than the rest of the world. While the rest of Africa moved away from colonial rule, South Africa entrenched white domination. In this case, the rest of the world liberalized social and legal responses to sexuality while South Africa laid down legal prohibitions. * Nancy L. Clark, DeGrummond Professor of History, Louisiana State University * This deeply researched and original book not only examines the history of abortion for both black and white women in South Africa but also locates protests against restrictive policies within the context of international developments, particularly in Great Britain and the United States. The focus on telling the story in part through detailed and complex portraits of individual health providers and activists adds to this book's readability and general interest. The focus on class as well as race, not only among women but also among advocates of liberalizing abortion laws, adds important nuance and complexity to the book's argument. * Iris Berger, author of South Africa in World History and Threads of Solidarity: Women in South African Industry, 1900-1930 * A remarkable contribution to the history of reproductive politics. Klausen, an outstanding scholar, extends our knowledge of the role of anti-abortion laws in maintaining white supremacy in South Africa and sharpens our analysis of these matters globally. Well-written, profoundly important, and a crucial addition to the literature of race, reproduction, and power. * Rickie Solinger, author of Reproductive Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know and co-editor of Reproductive States: Global Perspectives on the Invention and Implementation of Population Policy *

A remarkable contribution to the history of reproductive politics. Klausen, an outstanding scholar, extends our knowledge of the role of anti-abortion laws in maintaining white supremacy in South Africa and sharpens our analysis of these matters globally. Well-written, profoundly important, and a crucial addition to the literature of race, reproduction, and power. Rickie Solinger, author of Reproductive Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know and co-editor of Reproductive States: Global Perspectives on the Invention and Implementation of Population Policy This deeply researched and original book not only examines the history of abortion for both black and white women in South Africa but also locates protests against restrictive policies within the context of international developments, particularly in Great Britain and the United States. The focus on telling the story in part through detailed and complex portraits of individual health providers and activists adds to this book's readability and general interest. The focus on class as well as race, not only among women but also among advocates of liberalizing abortion laws, adds important nuance and complexity to the book's argument. Iris Berger, author of South Africa in World History and Threads of Solidarity: Women in South African Industry, 1900-1930 Susanne Klausen has combed archival sources - some never before used - and interviewed several of the principles, adding a new dimension to the debates over reproductive rights in South Africa in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Of great interest is her contention that the South African case fits into the contemporary global situation. In the postwar period, South Africa repeatedly moved in a more conservative direction than the rest of the world. While the rest of Africa moved away from colonial rule, South Africa entrenched white domination. In this case, the rest of the world liberalized social and legal responses to sexuality while South Africa laid down legal prohibitions. Nancy L. Clark, DeGrummond Professor of History, Louisiana State University

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 * 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 ...This book would work well in an undergraduate classroom because it has a clear narrative arc. Students of African history, political science, and women's/gender studies will appreciate the complex description of apartheid South Africa, as well as African gender politics more generally. The book will also appeal to historians of modern Africa, as well as scholars of global women's, gender, and sexuality studies. It is certainly not one to be missed. * Alicia C. Decker, American Historical Review * Susanne Klausen has combed archival sources - some never before used - and interviewed several of the principles, adding a new dimension to the debates over reproductive rights in South Africa in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Of great interest is her contention that the South African case fits into the contemporary global situation. In the postwar period, South Africa repeatedly moved in a more conservative direction than the rest of the world. While the rest of Africa moved away from colonial rule, South Africa entrenched white domination. In this case, the rest of the world liberalized social and legal responses to sexuality while South Africa laid down legal prohibitions. * Nancy L. Clark, DeGrummond Professor of History, Louisiana State University * This deeply researched and original book not only examines the history of abortion for both black and white women in South Africa but also locates protests against restrictive policies within the context of international developments, particularly in Great Britain and the United States. The focus on telling the story in part through detailed and complex portraits of individual health providers and activists adds to this book's readability and general interest. The focus on class as well as race, not only among women but also among advocates of liberalizing abortion laws, adds important nuance and complexity to the book's argument. * Iris Berger, author of South Africa in World History and Threads of Solidarity: Women in South African Industry, 1900-1930 * A remarkable contribution to the history of reproductive politics. Klausen, an outstanding scholar, extends our knowledge of the role of anti-abortion laws in maintaining white supremacy in South Africa and sharpens our analysis of these matters globally. Well-written, profoundly important, and a crucial addition to the literature of race, reproduction, and power. * Rickie Solinger, author of Reproductive Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know and co-editor of Reproductive States: Global Perspectives on the Invention and Implementation of Population Policy *

Author Information

Susanne M. Klausen is Associate Professor of History at Carleton University, Ottawa, and Senior Research Associate in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg. She is the author of Race, Maternity and the Politics of Birth Control in South Africa.

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