'I'd never had pain like that -- a searing, dying agony' : racialized clandestine abortion -- 'South Africa is experiencing an all-out attack by permissiveness' : Communism, immorality and the disintegration of apartheid culture -- 'My uterus belongs to me' : the campaign for abortion law reform -- 'The trial the world is watching' : the Crichton-Watts trial, 1972 -- 'Subjected to relentless and grueling cross-examination' : the Crichton-Maharaj trial, 1973 -- 'Reclaiming the white daughter's purity' : the passage and impact of the Abortion and Sterilization Act, 1975 -- 'The actual matter is with us whites' : abortion and the 'black peril' -- 'The law is a total failure' : abortion from 1975 to the end of apartheid -- Conclusion -- Appendix A: The Abortion and Sterilization Act
Summary
This work examines the criminalisation of abortion in South Africa during apartheid (1948-1990) and its impact on women of all 'races' determined to terminate unwanted pregnancies. It also traces the emergence of a movement for abortion law reform and the 1975 passage of South Africa's first statutory law on abortion
