Sign of Pathology: U.S. Medical Rhetoric on Abortion, 1800s–1960s

271 Pages·2015·6.19 MB·English

by  Nathan Stormer

Sign of Pathology
RSA STR
The RSA SerieS in Tr anSdiSciplinary RhetoRic

Edited by
Michael Bernard- Donals (University of Wisconsin) and
Leah Ceccarelli (University of Washington)
Editorial Board:
Diane Davis, The University of Texas at Austin
Cara Finnegan, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign
Debra Hawhee, The Pennsylvania State University
John Lynch, University of Cincinnati
Steven Mailloux, Loyola Marymount University
Kendall Phillips, Syracuse University
Thomas Rickert, Purdue University
The RSA Series in Transdisciplinary Rhetoric is a collaboration with
the Rhetoric Society of America to publish innovative and rigor-
ously argued scholarship on the tremendous dis ciplinary breadth of
rhetoric. Books in the series take a variety of approaches, includ-
ing theoretical, historical, interpretive, critical, or ethnographic, and
will examine rhetorical action in a way that appeals, first, to scholars
in communication studies and English or writing, and, second, to at
least one other discipline or subject area.
Nathan Stormer
Sign of Pathology
U.S. Medical Rhetoric on abortion, 1800s–1960s
The Pennsylvania sTaTe UniversiTy Press
UniversiTy Park, Pennsylvania
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Stormer, Nathan, 1966– , author.
Sign of pathology : U.S. medical rhetoric on abortion,
1800s–1960s / Nathan Stormer.
pages cm — (The RSA series in transdisciplinary rhetoric)
Summary: “Examines the medical discourse on abortion in
the United States from the 1800s to the 1960s. Demonstrates
that abortion was seen as a sign of social pathology indicating
undoing of civilization”—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-271-06555-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Abortion—United States—History.
2. Rhetoric.
I. Title.
HQ767.5.U5S769 2015
362.1988'80973—dc23
2014034004
Copyright © 2015 The Rhetoric Society of America
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA 16802-1 003
The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the
Association of American University Presses.
It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to
use acid- free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy
the minimum requirements of American National Standard
for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Material, ANSI Z39.48–1992.
This book is printed on paper that contains
30% post-consumer waste
To BUeller and Mclovin, my cats,
one or the other of which has watched me
write almost every word of this manuscript
(with closed but attentive eyes).
Here is another book to sleep on, made
especially for you.

Contents
Acknowledgments | ix
Introduction: Struggling Through Life | 1
ParT 1
1 When Abortion Became a Political-E conomic Problem | 27
2 Remembering, Forgetting, and the Secrets of Life | 49
ParT 2
3 “White Man’s Plague”: Anti-M althusian Memory Work
at the Fin de Siècle | 69
4 “More Wisdom in Living”: Neo- Malthusian Memory
Work at Midcentury | 101
5 “The Lesser of Threatened Evils”: Therapeutic Amnesias | 134
Conclusion: Seeking Immunity | 169
Notes | 185
Bibliography | 219
Index | 245

acknowledgments
I have been working on this book for so long that it feels like its unfinishedness
is what I am, a book in waiting. I thought I would knock it out in five years after
my first book, tops. It took thirteen. Working as the sole author, particularly on
a long, complicated research project, can be very isolating. I began to lose hope
of ever finishing it and I reconsidered what I was doing, but finally I found my
footing again. I never stopped working on it, yet looking at it now it seems to
have taken rather a long time for an ordinary-s ized book. You’d expect more of
a doorstop from that much effort.
I don’t mean to be maudlin about a completed book that I am proud of; there
was no wailing or gnashing of teeth (well, a bit), and my slowness is of little
meaning to anyone but my partner, Naomi, and me. What I want to say is that
if it were not for many people who were kind to me, I might have given up and I
am so happy to have this space to acknowledge that help and support. Whatever
is good in this work is a reflection of the friends and colleagues whom I am so
fortunate to have.
I am grateful to the many librarians and archivists who have helped me over
the years at the Allegheny Special Collection on Women and Medicine, the
American Medical Association Medical Fraud Archive, the Biddle Law Library,
the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, the Frederick J. Taussig Papers
at Washington University, the National Library of Medicine, the Schlesinger
Library, the Sophia Smith Collection, the Wangensteen Historical Library,
and the Western Historical Manuscript Collection. I am also grateful to Taylor
and Francis for allowing me to reprint some portions of several of my essays
within chapters of this manuscript (“A Likely Past: Abortion, Social Data, and
a Collective Memory of Secrets in 1950s America,” Communication and Critical/
Cultural Studies 7 [2010]: 337–59; “Mediating Biopower and the Case of Prena-
tal Space,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 27 [2010]: 8–23; “Recursiv-
ity: A Working Paper on Rhetoric and Mnesis.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 99
[2013]: 27–50). I am very thankful for my colleagues Michael Socolow, Liam
Riordan, and Constanza Ocampo-R eader, who read several chapters from this
manuscript and helped me focus on audience so much better than I could have
otherwise.