A review by chubby_little_butter_books
The Trials of Madame Restell: Nineteenth-Century America's Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime by Nicholas L. Syrett

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

‘...respectable, white, married ladies, the people who should be producing the next generation of upstanding American citizens were reneging on their duties in favour of family limitation. If they had fewer children, while the poor and immigrants continued to have such large families, would old stock Americans be outnumbered? Even replaced altogether?’ 
 
In the mid-nineteenth century, women were beginning to work out of the house more, to take up more independent lives and restrict the number of children they were having. For those with means, or those willing to work off a debt, the likes of Madame Restell (and numerous counterparts) would assist women (and men) with limiting the size of families, the trauma of childbearing out of wedlock and preventing conception in the first place. Madame Restell was, likely, the most famous female physician in America, primarily because she was seen as a murderess, killer of babies, and in some sense, the American family.  
 
I was fascinated with this story, knowing nothing about Madame Restell or women like her prior to picking up this audio ARC. What was most interesting was to learn some of the data related to abortion and midwifery practice in the 1800’s, compared with early gynaecological practice, which was being pioneered at the time. The likes of Madame Restell, who is acknowledged within this text as a highly skilled female physician, who is never recorded as having lost a patient, were far safer to entrust with delivering a child or performing an abortion than their degree possessing counterparts. This, of course, angered male doctors, who resented sharing the name physician with these uneducated women, and between these men and a religious zealot or two, the anti-abortion movement was born. It was truly a gift to learn about the beginnings of this movement and its, likely, deep seeded misogyny and resentment of women both who were baring children as they saw fit and those willing to assist them. While this book did circle back on itself a few times and was occasionally dry, I found it to be overall informative and engaging. I was saddened by the end which befell Madame Restell, and which indicates I had engaged with her both as a character, as well as a historical figure. If you have an interest in history, particularly relating to the freedoms of women or feminist movements, this book may give you an insight into the genesis of one of these causes.  
 
Madeline Maby’s narration was engaging and very well suited to the subject matter, I very much enjoyed her reading.  
Expand filter menu Content Warnings