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6. Bodies at the Crossroads: The Rise and Fall of Madame Restell May I not suggest in conclusion, whether the incessant abuse of me upon every possible occasion, upon the slightest pretext, or no pretext, is not cowardly and ungentlemanly. Cowardly, because I am a woman, and those attacking me are supposed to be men. Cowardly, because they have an immense and crushing engine of power, subject to their will and control, which I have not; and ungentlemanly, because no gentleman will thus take unfair advantage. —“A Card from Madame Restell” Up to this point, the principals involved in the legal cases this volume has covered have been accused of only one crime. Their cases rose to prominence rapidly and were as rapidly forgotten. Ann Lohman, alias Madame Restell, was different. Her rise and fall took over thirty years and was documented carefully—by her adversaries. “Madame Restell” was a professional abortionist . Although she was repeatedly arrested and tried, she never once admitted that what she was doing was a crime. She was a businesswoman, she protested , supplying a much-needed service. The laws of the state of New York thought otherwise. Still, no matter how hard they pursued her, the courts were never able to close her establishment. In the nineteenth century, her name was synonymous with abortion in the United States. So much so that “Restellism” became the embodiment of the abortion controversy during that era. Restell the character was eventually cut lose from any connection to Loh­ man the woman. That character was enlarged, refined, and vilified until it eventually served as a representative anecdote for the practice of abortion. Any person desiring to know the full extent of the consequences of such practices need only know her story. In other words, the abortion controversy was embodied by a female char- 112 the crimes of womanhood acter. During the thirty years of Madame Restell’s career, one can see the continual refinement of arguments related to abortion as they were applied over and over again to that character. Abortion was the ultimate crime of womanhood, and Madame Restell embodied that crime. This chapter explores the way the choice of Restell as a central figure framed the rhetoric of the abortion debate. After introducing the critical concepts, I will examine the rhetoric used in several of the legal battles involving Restell. Focusing on the cases merely scratches the surface, for the abortion debate evoked Restell frequently, even during times when she was not personally involved. The character of Restell lived on for decades after the death of the actual woman. The instances discussed here are specifically times when the physical body of Lohman was directly affected by the symbolic body of Restell. The Case of Madame Restell The mysterious Madame Restell was the embodiment of several major currents of change in American life. Born in England, Ann Trow Sommers and her husband joined the waves of immigrants coming to New York City in the early nineteenth century. When her husband died, leaving her alone with an infant daughter to support, she joined the legion of seamstresses struggling to survive in the city. It is not clear where she got the idea of compounding contraceptive potions, but what is clear is that she made much more money selling nostrums than sewing garments. In 1836, she met and married Charles Lohman. Lohman was a printer for the New York Herald. He also dabbled in publishing tracts related to contraception . Lohman was Ann’s entrée into the circle of “freethinkers” who formed the core of the debate over population control, a debate typified by writers and lecturers such as Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright. As might be surmised, Lohman was far from shocked at his wife’s profession . Indeed, he encouraged her to expand her practice. The two of them created a story of a trip to Europe to train in midwifery with a celebrated French physician named Restell. Although there is no evidence that such a trip was ever taken, the story added the appropriate exotic veneer to her persona. Ann Trow Lohman became Madame Restell.1 She also slowly expanded her range of services. In addition to selling abortifacients , she provided advice on contraception and kept a boardinghouse where women with inconvenient pregnancies could give birth in anonymity . For an additional fee, she would arrange for the adoption of unwanted infants. For those women whose pregnancies were too far advanced to be [3.144.233.150] Project...

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