By their fruits
Subtitle: eugenics, population control, and the abortion campaign
By: Ann Farmer.
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Washington, D.C
Language: eng
Number of pages: 421
ISBN-13: 9780813215303
Subjects: Eugenics -- Great Britain -- History; Birth control -- Great Britain -- History
Description: "Ann Farmer illuminates a dark corner of modern Western history in her new study of the English abortion campaign. This book aims to correct long-held assumptions that the abortion campaign was the product of feminism and concern about backstreet abortion, and argues instead that it was the fruit of the eugenics/population control movement. Associated with Nazi Germany, eugenics is a social philosophy that advocates the improvement of the human race through various forms of intervention. Farmer argues; despite their compassionate rhetoric, female abortion advocates were all eugenicists obsessed with controlling the quality and quantify of mankind. In addition to abortion, birth control, and sterilization, "solutions" included even the lethal chamber; abortion advocates worked closely with American and German eugenicists despite Nazi anti-Semitism."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Foreword by / Lord David Alton; title: Preface; title: Acknowledgments; title: Abbreviations; title: Malthusianism and eugenics: a preamble; title: The early abortion campaign, backstreet abortion, and eugenics; title: Abortion, eugenics, and democracy; title: The 1967 Abortion Act and eugenics; title: After the Act: abortion, eugenics, and population control; title: The abortion campaign: feminism, eugenics, and public policy; title: Beyond abortion: a step into darkness?; title: Appendix A: A note on historical sources; title: Appendix B: English abortion law: a summary; title: Works consulted; title: Index.