Coerced and clandestine abortion attempts physically and psychologically scar young women.

Evidence

I became friendly with a neighbor’s son ten years older than myself … His caresses were so new to me that, well, I let myself go. However, in no way was it a question of love. But he continued to teach me a lot of things, giving me books to read on women; and finally I gave him the gift of my virginity. When, two months later, I accepted a situation as a teacher in a nursery school in Speuze, I was pregnant. I didn’t see my period for two more months. My seducer wrote to me that I absolutely had to make my period come back by drinking gasoline and eating black soap. I can no longer now describe the torments I went through … I had to see this misery through to the end on my own. The fear of having a child made me do the awful thing. This is how I learned to hate men. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1425

Categorization

• QUESTION: Was drinking gasoline or eating black soap a common folk-abortifacient practice of the era, or a deliberate poisoning from the seducer? Worth verifying historically.
• XREF: The young woman’s transformation from seduced innocence to learned hatred of men fits the existentialist arc of the Other coming to self-consciousness through suffering — parallels Changeux’s accounts in this reading list. — connects to: An adolescent can experience motherhood as an assault on bodily self-possession. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1435; Illegality transforms the physical anguish of abortion into moral punishment for women — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1430; A single sexual transgression can force a woman into secret, solitary abortion. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1423 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Illegality transforms the physical anguish of abortion into moral punishment for women #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1430
• Abortion can turn a woman’s body-mutilation guilt into lasting coldness toward the man involved. #expands (0.80)
• A single sexual transgression can force a woman into secret, solitary abortion. #exemplifies (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1423