ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the preliminary findings from some 200 criminal abortion cases, some of which are made up of substantial records including police interviews of pre-trial investigations and the interrogations during the main trial. It explores some of the changes in the practice of and attitudes to termination of pregnancy after the First World War. The history of abortion has succeeded in addressing questions of gender and in bringing to light the inequality inherent in the relationship between women and the medical profession. The preference for female help is further suggested by the evidence that many women who had ended up with a doctor had in fact originally consulted a midwife but had then been referred for "expert" treatment. The world of the lay abortionists provides us not only with examples of co-operation between women, and between women and men, to the benefit of the aborting women, but also with many instances of men abusing women patients.
