A conspiracy of silence: abortion, birth control and eugenics in early twentieth-century Scotland

沉默的阴谋：二十世纪初苏格兰的堕胎、节育和优生学

• 批准号: 2710819
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Edinburgh
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2710819
• 关键词: conspiracy; silence; abortion; birth; control

The introduction of the pill and the Abortion Act of 1967 were received with hostility by the Scottish medical community, who were reluctant to take on this responsibility. This was unsurprising, considering the enduring influence of religion on Scottish society and the ethical conflict ending life posed for doctors who had hitherto disassociated themselves from abortions as national abortion legislation was non-existent in Scotland prior to 1967. Yet, this reluctance seemingly contradicts the establishment of birth control clinics in Scotland in 1926, operated by medical professionals and supported by town councils.The English counterparts have received much attention from historians, and debate exists around the extent to which the birth control clinics of Marie Stopes, a campaigner for eugenics and women's rights, were influenced by eugenics. While Deborah Cohen maintains that clinics subordinated eugenic beliefs to a desire to help all, Jane Carey and Richard Soloway underline that eugenics and feminism were not antithetical, but rather inseparable as clinics sought to advance specific social classes and races. Conversely, Scotland's first birth control clinics have largely been overlooked. Only Kristin Elliott has examined these to prove interwar Scotland had a vibrant women's movement. Similarly, the other major study on this period by Annmarie Hughes discusses birth control in relation to women's activism within the labour movement, and Sue Innes's work briefly acknowledges that birth control was discussed in campaigns in women's guilds. The only study on abortion in Scotland in this period by Roger Davidson relies solely on High Court trials. A wider history of these topics and of eugenics in early twentieth-century Scotland is missing. This is striking, because Scotland differed from the rest of Britain considering Scotland's lack of national abortion legislation in this period and distinctive legal system and medical, civic and sexual culture. Furthermore, with fears about national decline being rife internationally, Scotland especially - pivotal to Britain's trade and military with its shipbuilding industry - was facing a declining birth rate, a rise in infant mortality rates and a high number of widows resulting from the disproportionate Scottish mortality rate during the war. This project deviates from existing studies by considering abortion and birth control vis-à-vis population policy rather than feminist action. It addresses current gaps by examining discourses on abortion, birth control and eugenics in early twentieth-century Scotland and to what extent eugenics was reflected in policies and initiatives concerned with reproductive health, particularly in birth control clinics. Where doing so requires uncovering broader motivations behind texts, Foucauldian discourse analysis will be used combined with 'reading against the grain'. I will examine public discourses on these issues using newspapers from the British Newspaper Archive, and kirk session records from the National Records of Scotland (NRS) are useful to track changing discourses on these issues within the Scottish churches, which were extremely influential. To investigate women's views, I will use documents from the NRS relating to the Edinburgh Women Citizens' Association, which was dedicated to issues like birth control and worked closely with other Scottish women's organisations. For legal discourses, documented court trials concerning criminal abortions and government documents (local and national) relating to abortion and birth control policies from the NRS and local authority archives will be used. I will then explore works of and correspondence between prominent gynaecologists in the Wellcome Collection, Mitchell Library and the RCPSG to investigate attitudes towards eugenics in Scotland's medical community,& records from Scottish birth control clinics located in the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Archive to examine thier origins & workings.

避孕药的引入和1967年的《堕胎法》受到了苏格兰医学界的敌视，他们不愿意承担这一责任。考虑到宗教对苏格兰社会的持久影响，以及由于1967年之前苏格兰不存在国家堕胎立法，迄今为止与堕胎无关的医生所面临的结束生命的道德冲突，这并不奇怪。然而，这种不情愿似乎与1926年在苏格兰建立的节育诊所相矛盾，该诊所由医疗专业人员经营，并得到镇议会的支持。英国的节育诊所受到了历史学家的广泛关注，围绕着优生学和妇女权利活动家玛丽斯托普斯的节育诊所受到优生学影响的程度存在争议。黛博拉·科恩（Deborah Cohen）坚持认为，诊所将优生信念置于帮助所有人的愿望之下，而简·凯里（Jane Carey）和理查德·索洛韦（Richard Soloway）则强调优生学和女权主义并不对立，而是不可分割的，因为诊所寻求推进特定的社会阶层和种族。相反，苏格兰的第一批节育诊所在很大程度上被忽视了。只有克里斯汀·埃利奥特（Kristin Elliott）研究了这些，以证明两次世界大战之间的苏格兰有一个充满活力的妇女运动。同样，安玛丽·休斯（Annmarie Hughes）对这一时期的另一项主要研究讨论了节育与劳工运动中妇女活动的关系，苏·英尼斯（Sue Innes）的工作简要地承认节育在妇女行会的运动中被讨论过。罗杰·戴维森在这一时期对苏格兰堕胎问题的唯一研究完全依赖于高等法院的审判。关于这些话题和优生学在20世纪早期苏格兰的更广泛的历史是缺失的。这是惊人的，因为考虑到苏格兰在这一时期缺乏全国性的堕胎立法，以及独特的法律的制度和医疗、公民和性文化，苏格兰与英国其他地区不同。此外，随着对国家衰落的担忧在国际上盛行，苏格兰尤其是--英国的贸易和军事与造船业的关键--正面临着出生率下降、婴儿死亡率上升和战争期间苏格兰死亡率不成比例造成的大量寡妇。该项目偏离了现有的研究，考虑了堕胎和节育与人口政策的关系，而不是女权主义行动。它解决了目前的差距，通过检查在二十世纪初苏格兰的堕胎，节育和优生学的话语，在何种程度上优生学反映在政策和有关生殖健康的倡议，特别是在节育诊所。如果这样做需要揭示更广泛的动机背后的文本，福柯的话语分析将结合使用“阅读对粮食”。我将使用英国报纸档案馆的报纸来研究关于这些问题的公共话语，苏格兰国家记录（NRS）的柯克会议记录有助于跟踪苏格兰教会内部关于这些问题的不断变化的话语，这些话语极具影响力。为了调查妇女的观点，我将使用NRS中与爱丁堡妇女公民协会有关的文件，该协会致力于节育等问题，并与其他苏格兰妇女组织密切合作。关于法律的论述，将使用国家统计局和地方当局档案中有关刑事堕胎的法庭审判记录和有关堕胎和计划生育政策的政府文件（地方和国家）。然后，我将探索的作品和威康收藏，米切尔图书馆和RCPSG著名妇科医生之间的通信，以调查对苏格兰医学界优生学的态度，以及来自苏格兰节育诊所位于NHS大格拉斯哥和克莱德档案馆的记录，以检查其起源和工作。