Safer Than Childbirth - The American Scholar
Abortion in the 19th century was widely accepted as a means of avoiding the risks of pregnancy
19世纪的堕胎被广泛接受为避免怀孕风险的一种手段
Listen to our interview with Tamara Dean about this essay on Smarty Pants.
听我们对 Tamara Dean 关于这篇关于 Smarty Pants 的文章的采访。
At our rural county’s historical society, the past lives loosely in bulletins, news clippings, plat books, and handwritten index cards.
在我们乡村县的历史学会中，过去的事情松散地存在于公告、新闻剪报、图册和手写索引卡中。
It’s pieced together by pale, gray-haired women who sit at oak tables and pore over old photos.
它是由苍白、灰发的女性拼凑而成，她们坐在橡木桌旁，仔细研究旧照片。
Western sun filters in, half-lighting the women as they name who’s pictured, who has passed on.
西方的阳光渗入进来，半亮的女性们在说出照片中的人物、已经去世的人物时。
Other volunteers gossip and cut obituaries from local newspapers.
其他志愿者则闲聊并从当地报纸上剪下讣告。
I was sent here by hearsay.
我是根据传闻被派到这里的。
For years, my neighbor has claimed that the old cemetery in the low-lying field on my Wisconsin property contains more bodies than the scant number of tombstones indicates.
多年来，我的邻居一直声称，我在威斯康星州的一处低洼田地里的旧墓地里的尸体比数量有限的墓碑所显示的还要多。
The epic flood of 1978 washed away the markers of the nameless—Civil War soldiers, he says.
他说，1978 年的史诗般的洪水冲走了无名的内战士兵的标记。
I want to know who the dead were in life.
我想知道生前的死者是谁。
After many walks through the cemetery, I’m familiar with the markers that remain.
经过多次走过墓地后，我熟悉了留下的标记。
One narrow footstone reads simply, “MAS.” Three marble headstones rest at odd angles among the box elder trees.
一块狭窄的基石上简单地写着“MAS”。三块大理石墓碑以奇怪的角度坐落在黄杨接骨木树之间。
Stained, eroded, and lichen crusted, the stones belong to a boy and two baby girls who died in the 1850s and ’60s.
这些石头上有污渍、侵蚀和地衣结痂，属于一个男孩和两个女婴，他们死于 1850 年代和 60 年代。
On the boy’s is a relief of a weeping willow; on the sisters’ are rosebuds.
男孩的身上有一棵垂柳的浮雕；姐妹们的身上都是玫瑰花蕾。
Signs of young lives cut short.
年轻生命的迹象戛然而止。
I’m sitting at one of the oak tables when Carol, the historical society’s assistant curator, hands me a binder of cemetery records.
我坐在一张橡木桌旁，历史学会的助理馆长卡罗尔递给我一本墓地记录活页夹。
A stranger has just sat beside me, her husband opposite us.
一个陌生人刚刚坐在我旁边，她的丈夫在我们对面。
I study the list of those buried on my land.
我研究了埋在我土地上的人的名单。
I recognize the children’s names.
我认得孩子们的名字。
I don’t see any men’s names.
我没有看到任何男人的名字。
But there’s the name of a woman I’ve never heard of.
但有一个我从未听说过的女人的名字。
I read it aloud: “Nancy Ann Harris.”
我大声朗读：“南希·安·哈里斯。”
The stranger says, “She was married to Benjamin Franklin Harris, who’s my husband’s great-great-great uncle.” She nods to her husband, who nods in confirmation.
陌生人说：“她嫁给了本杰明·富兰克林·哈里斯，他是我丈夫的曾祖父。”她向丈夫点点头，丈夫也点头表示确认。
“She died of an abortion,” the stranger adds.
“她死于堕胎，”陌生人补充道。
“Apparently, she’d had a lot of them.”
“显然，她有很多。”
I want to ask her what she means, but another woman, who has been eavesdropping, leans toward me and frowns.
我想问她什么意思，但另一个一直在偷听的女人向我倾身，皱起了眉头。
“That Nancy must have been something else,” she says.
“那个南希一定是别的什么人，”她说。
I’m startled by her dismissive tone, her vague implication.
我对她轻蔑的语气和含糊的暗示感到惊讶。
I don’t think quickly enough to challenge her.
我的思考速度不够快，无法挑战她。
Instead, the rest of us—Carol and I and the stranger and her husband, whose great-great-great aunt lies in my field—turn silent.
相反，我们其他人——卡罗尔和我，还有陌生人和她的丈夫，他的曾曾曾姨妈躺在我的田里——变得沉默。
I look down again at the five names of the buried.
我再次低头看着被埋葬者的五个名字。
Long after I leave the table, I keep wishing I’d spoken up.
离开餐桌很久之后，我一直希望自己能开口说话。
On my land in rural Wisconsin, the past exerts itself.
在我位于威斯康星州乡村的土地上，过去的历史在发挥着作用。
It affects me.
它影响着我。
I slop through the channels left by long-dead farmers.
我沿着死去已久的农民留下的渠道溜过去。
I eat apples from trees planted by settlers and groundnuts cultivated by Native Americans.
我吃定居者种植的苹果和美洲原住民种植的花生。
I laze in the shade of oaks left unlogged for that purpose and let a field that was burned intentionally for centuries burn its way back into prairie again.
我懒洋洋地躺在为此目的而未砍伐的橡树的树荫下，让一块被故意烧毁了几个世纪的土地再次燃烧回草原。
I’ve wondered about those who plowed, planted trees, and set fires.
我想知道那些犁地、植树和放火的人。
Now Nancy reaches forward and casts me to conjure her.
现在，南希向前伸出手，让我召唤她。
The life of her husband, Benjamin Franklin “Frank” Harris, is well documented.
她的丈夫本杰明·富兰克林·“弗兰克”·哈里斯的生活有据可查。
He was a Civil War soldier who belonged to a famous brigade.
他是一名内战士兵，隶属于一个著名的旅。
But my research yields no clues about Nancy’s origins or biography.
但我的研究没有提供有关南希的出身或传记的任何线索。
On another visit to the historical society, I ask Carol, “Do you have any files about abortion in history?
在另一次访问历史学会时，我问卡罗尔：“历史上有关于堕胎的档案吗？
Or women’s reproductive health in the 1800s?” No and no. In our rural county, women’s history is depicted in sepia-toned images of farm wives, teacher-training school graduates, and early suffragists.
或者 1800 年代女性的生殖健康？”不，不。在我们的农村县，妇女的历史是通过农场主妇、教师培训学校毕业生和早期妇女参政主义者的深褐色调图像来描绘的。
Private pains and joys remain private, lost to us.
私人的痛苦和欢乐仍然是私人的，对我们来说已经失去了。
Across town, I stop at the office of the Register of Deeds to see Nancy’s death record.
穿过城镇，我在契约登记处停下来查看南希的死亡记录。
The registrar, a cheerful, talkative woman, shows me just-snapped photos of her granddaughter on her smartphone.
登记员是一位性格开朗、健谈的女士，她给我看了她智能手机上刚拍的她孙女的照片。
She asks me to sign in and state my purpose before she’ll allow me into the records room.
她要求我登录并说明我的目的，然后才允许我进入档案室。
Nancy’s death on December 16, 1876, at age 35, is among the first to be recorded in the yellowed, leather-bound volumes.
南希于 1876 年 12 月 16 日去世，享年 35 岁，这是这本发黄的皮革封面书籍中最早记录的人之一。
The cause, “puerperal peritonitis,” is annotated by a triple-dagger symbol that directs the reader to a line of script rising up the margin like a pointed finger: “Disease caused by abortion at 3 months this was perhaps the 10th abortion all except this followed by smart hemorrhagae.” It’s the longest description of a death in all of those volumes.
病因“产后腹膜炎”用三把匕首符号注释，引导读者看到一行像尖手指一样从边缘升起的文字：“三个月时堕胎引起的疾病，这可能是第十次堕胎，除了这一次之后发生的大出血。”这是所有这些书中对死亡最长的描述。
Maybe Dr. R.
也许 R 博士
H.
H.
Delap, who signed her death certificate, instructed the county clerk to copy his notes without omission.
德拉普在她的死亡证明上签名，并指示县书记官将其笔记无遗漏地复印。
Or maybe the clerk felt he couldn’t abbreviate the doctor’s notes in this case.
或者，也许办事员觉得他不能在这种情况下缩写医生的笔记。
Only one other record mentions abortion.
只有另一记录提到堕胎。
But on every page of those early volumes, women aged 19 to 47 are listed as dying from puerperal peritonitis, puerperal fever, puerperal septicemia, “inflammation after confinement,” eclampsia, and “giving birth to a child.” I find more dead fertile women than old men.
但在这些早期书籍的每一页上，19岁至47岁的女性都被列为死于产后腹膜炎、产后热、产后败血症、“产后炎症”、子痫和“生孩子”的人。我发现死亡的有生育能力的女性比老年男性还要多。
In Nancy’s time, abortion was a common means of birth control, a way for women of every race and social class to limit family size, manage resources, and protect their health.
在南希时代，堕胎是一种常见的节育手段，是各个种族和社会阶层的女性限制家庭规模、管理资源和保护健康的一种方式。
The procedure was often a safer alternative to childbirth, which some women considered “pathological and frightening” and many others approached with foreboding, according to James Mohr’s 1978 book, Abortion in America .
根据詹姆斯·莫尔 (James Mohr) 1978 年出版的《美国堕胎》一书，这种手术通常是比分娩更安全的替代方案，一些女性认为分娩“病态且令人恐惧”，而许多其他女性则抱着不祥的预感。
Every woman, including Nancy, would have known friends, sisters, or cousins who died or were debilitated while giving birth.
每个女人，包括南希，都认识在分娩时死亡或虚弱的朋友、姐妹或表兄弟姐妹。
They would have known those who took pains to avoid it.
他们会认识那些煞费苦心避免这种情况的人。
In the 1700s and early 1800s, conception was considered a disturbance of a woman’s natural balance.
在 1700 年代和 1800 年代初期，怀孕被认为是对女性自然平衡的干扰。
Methods of “removing a blockage” or “restoring the menses” were sometimes necessary to reestablish the body’s balance, even if they induced a miscarriage.
有时需要“排除堵塞”或“恢复月经”的方法来重建身体的平衡，即使它们会导致流产。
Abortions that occurred before quickening, which was understood as the time when a pregnant woman could feel the fetus move (usually around the fourth month), were both legally and morally acceptable.
在胎动之前发生的堕胎，即孕妇能感觉到胎儿移动的时间（通常在第四个月左右），在法律和道德上都是可以接受的。
Quickening was an indicator based on women’s perceptions, not a medical diagnosis.
加速是基于女性认知的指标，而不是医学诊断。
But in the absence of a scientific pregnancy test, it was recognized as the threshold of human development.
但在没有科学的妊娠测试的情况下，它被公认为人类发育的门槛。
Before quickening, no one, not even the Catholic Church, believed that a human life existed, notes Leslie J.
在苏醒之前，没有人，甚至天主教会，相信人类生命的存在，莱斯利·J.
Reagan in her 1996 book, When Abortion Was a Crime, reissued earlier this year.
里根在她 1996 年出版的书《当堕胎是一种犯罪》中，今年早些时候重新出版。
Abortion was so frequent, according to one doctor, that “it [was] rare to find a married woman who passes through the childbearing period, who has not had one or more.” Women spoke of it casually.
一位医生表示，堕胎非常频繁，“很少有已婚妇女在生育期后还没有生育过一个或多个孩子。”女人们随意地谈论着这件事。
They might decide to be “put straight,” “opened up,” or “fixed.” (They wouldn’t have said “abortion,” as that term belonged to the medical lexicon, not the vocabularies of ordinary people.) One physician reported that women “talk about such matters commonly and impart information unsparingly.” Although some doctors would perform the procedure, many women, especially in rural areas, induced abortions on their own using drugs or herbs and wisdom passed from one generation to another.
他们可能会决定“纠正”、“开放”或“修复”。 （他们不会说“堕胎”，因为这个词属于医学词典，而不是普通人的词汇。）一位医生报告说，女性“普遍谈论此类问题，并毫不留情地传递信息”。尽管一些医生会进行堕胎手术，但许多妇女，尤其是农村地区的妇女，自行使用药物或草药进行堕胎，智慧代代相传。
When Nancy was younger, she might have said to a favorite aunt or even Amanda Martin, who had already buried two daughters in my field, “I’ve missed twice and need to bring my course on.” The older women would have understood.
当南希还小的时候，她可能会对她最喜欢的阿姨甚至是已经在我的田地里埋葬了两个女儿的阿曼达·马丁说：“我已经错过了两次，需要继续我的课程。”年长的妇女会理解的。
After all, they had probably done the same.
毕竟，他们很可能也做过同样的事。
A 19th-century euphemism for missing a menstrual period was “taking the cold,” implying that pregnancy was a common ailment that came and went.
19 世纪，月经推迟的委婉说法是“感冒”，这意味着怀孕是一种时有时无的常见疾病。
Once asked, they would have helped Nancy.
一旦有人提出要求，他们就会帮助南希。
Years later, she might have felt confident in “removing female irregularity” on her own.
多年后，她可能对自己“消除女性不正常现象”充满信心。
I picture her lanky, dark-haired, with deep-set eyes, my portrait patterned after photos of settlers who lived on tracts around mine and whose descendants are my neighbors.
我想象着她瘦长、黑发、深陷的眼睛，我的肖像照是住在我周围土地上的定居者的照片，他们的后代就是我的邻居。
I picture her wise.
我想象她很聪明。
Strong willed.
意志坚强。
If she found an hour’s respite from chores at her cabin less than a mile from my place, where a tavern now stands, she might have asked her older stepdaughters to take care of her three younger children.
如果她能在距离我家不到一英里（现在那里有一家小酒馆）的小屋里摆脱家务，休息一个小时，她可能会要求她的大继女照顾她的三个年幼的孩子。
She might have left the cabin, walked north over marshy ground, and found what she needed in the hills behind my place: juniper, bloodroot, mayapple, Queen Anne’s lace seeds (in large quantities, taken early enough), or black cohosh, a plant Native American women relied on.
她可能离开了小屋，向北走过沼泽地，在我家后面的山上找到了她需要的东西：杜松、血根草、可能苹果、安妮女王的花边种子（大量，尽早采摘），或者黑升麻，一种美洲原住民妇女赖以生存的植物。
It’s also possible that Nancy sent away for a cure.
南希也有可能被送去接受治疗。
In the 19th century, abortion became commercialized.
19世纪，堕胎开始商业化。
Ingredients from herbal folk remedies (aloe, cotton root, tansy, black hellebore, ergot of rye, pennyroyal, motherwort, slippery elm, rue) were made into pills or tonics, which were mass-produced and advertised widely in popular newspapers and magazines.
民间草药（芦荟、棉根、艾菊、黑藜芦、黑麦麦角、薄荷、益母草、滑榆、芸香）的成分被制成丸剂或补品，大量生产并在流行报纸和杂志上广泛宣传。
Women could buy them through the mail or from local druggists.
妇女可以通过邮寄或从当地药剂师那里购买。
Even in rural Wisconsin, Nancy would have seen them advertised.
即使在威斯康星州的乡村，南希也会看到它们的广告。
By 1840, sales of abortifacients had surged, and profiteers who publicly promoted services to induce miscarriages flourished.
到了 1840 年，堕胎药的销量激增，公开推销流产服务的奸商也蓬勃发展。
One doctor called it “a regularly-established moneymaking trade.”
一位医生称其为“一种常规的赚钱交易”。
Experienced women were savvy about controlling their reproduction.
有经验的女性很懂得控制自己的生育。
They had advocated for women’s education, made themselves literate, and sought out materials that described feminine organs and ailments, however sketchy that information sometimes was.
她们倡导女性教育，让自己识字，并寻找描述女性器官和疾病的材料，无论这些信息有时多么粗略。
It’s possible that Nancy tucked The Married Woman’s Private Medical Companion, published in 1847, under a tablecloth in the hutch.
南希可能将 1847 年出版的《已婚妇女的私人医疗伴侣》藏在厨房的桌布下。
She might have noted the causes of abortion listed in the still-popular 18th-century text Domestic Medicine, or, a Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases, by Regimen and Simple Medicines, such as violent exercise, raising great weights, jumping from a great height, punching her belly, or bloodletting.
她可能注意到了 18 世纪仍然流行的教科书《家庭医学》或《养生简药》中列出的堕胎原因，例如剧烈运动、举重、从高处跳下、猛击腹部或放血。
Maybe, fearful and determined in her first attempt, she opted for violent exercise—perhaps sprinting up the same road I jog down—before trying something else.
也许，在她第一次尝试时，她感到恐惧和坚定，所以选择了剧烈运动——也许是在我慢跑的同一条路上冲刺——然后再尝试其他事情。
According to Reagan, one woman in 1918, after her menses were restored, said to her nurse, “Thank the Lord, I have been relieved.” This is how I envision Nancy on the day after each of her 10 or so abortions—relieved, if tired, and hopeful about her future.
根据里根的说法，1918 年，一名妇女在月经恢复后对她的护士说：“感谢上帝，我松了一口气。”这就是我对南希的想象，她每次堕胎大约有 10 次之后的那一天——虽然疲惫，但还是如释重负，并对自己的未来充满希望。
Maybe she took a day to rest in bed, asked her son to stoke the fire and one of her stepdaughters to make supper.
也许她在床上休息了一天，让儿子生火，让一个继女做晚饭。
She might have initially held off her husband, Frank, but then drew him closer, confident that she could deal with any consequences.
她一开始可能会避开她的丈夫弗兰克，但后来把他拉近了，相信自己能够应对任何后果。
Just when Nancy entered married life and was bearing children or choosing not to, the nation’s policies on abortion were changing.
就在南希进入婚姻生活并正在生孩子或选择不生孩子时，国家的堕胎政策正在发生变化。
Mail-order pills and tinctures were unregulated and sometimes lethal.
邮购药丸和酊剂不受管制，有时甚至致命。
In the 1820s and ’30s, the risk of poisoning led to the first laws affecting abortion, which penalized those who supplied abortifacients rather than the women who purchased or used them, as long as the women did so before quickening.
在 1820 年代和 30 年代，中毒风险导致了第一部影响堕胎的法律，该法律惩罚那些提供堕胎药的人，而不是购买或使用堕胎药的妇女，只要妇女在怀孕前这样做。
These restrictions didn’t stop women like Nancy from gathering herbs or sharing home remedies, nor did they eliminate quickening as a legal marker of a viable life.
这些限制并没有阻止像南希这样的女性采集草药或分享家庭疗法，也没有消除胎动作为可行生活的合法标志。
Punishment for terminating a pregnancy at any stage would come only decades later.
在任何阶段终止妊娠的惩罚只会在几十年后到来。
In 1857, the recently established American Medical Association (AMA) initiated a campaign, led by Dr. Horatio R.
1857 年，新成立的美国医学会 (AMA) 发起了一项运动，由 Horatio R.
Storer, to end abortion.
存储者，结束堕胎。
The organization’s reasons were many, but women’s health was not chief among them.
该组织的理由有很多，但女性健康并不是其中最主要的。
Reagan writes that the AMA and its members were attempting to “win professional power, control medical practice, and restrict their competitors, particularly Homeopaths and midwives.”
里根写道，美国医学协会及其成员试图“赢得专业权力、控制医疗实践并限制竞争对手，特别是顺势疗法医生和助产士”。
Class, racial, and gender anxieties factored into the doctors’ fear of losing power.
阶级、种族和性别焦虑是医生担心失去权力的因素之一。
As immigrants poured into the United States, the birthrate for white, Protestant, middle-class married women plummeted to historic lows that couldn’t be attributed to miscarriage, celibacy, or barrenness.
随着移民涌入美国，白人新教中产阶级已婚女性的出生率骤降至历史低点，这不能归因于流产、独身或不育。
Improved contraception was part of the reason, but so was an increase in the abortion rate.
避孕措施的改进是部分原因，但堕胎率的增加也是原因之一。
Storer and his peers became preoccupied with the latter—and for reasons that had less to do with protecting the right to life than with maintaining the prevailing social hierarchy.
斯托勒和他的同僚们开始关注后者——其原因与其说是为了保护生命权，不如说是为了维持普遍的社会等级制度。
As Reagan writes, “Antiabortion activists pointed out that immigrant families, many of them Catholic, were larger and would soon outpopulate native-born white Yankees and threaten their political power.”
正如里根所写，“反堕胎活动人士指出，移民家庭（其中许多是天主教徒）规模更大，很快就会超过本土出生的白人北方佬，并威胁到他们的政治权力。”
At the close of the Civil War, as the nation was tallying its dead and claiming more land for European-American settlement, Storer wrote a book called Why Not?
内战结束时，当国家清点阵亡人数并为欧美人定居点索取更多土地时，斯托勒写了一本名为《为什么不呢？》的书。
to persuade white, middle-class women to choose childbearing over abortion.
说服白人中产阶级女性选择生育而不是堕胎。
He asked whether the regions west and south of New England should be “filled by our own children or by those of aliens?” He admonished his female readers that “upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation.”
他问道，新英格兰西部和南部的地区是否应该“由我们自己的孩子或外国人的孩子填满？”他告诫女性读者“国家未来的命运取决于她们”。
At the same time, Storer and his male colleagues were heralding medical professionalism, a quality that they felt set them apart from quacks.
与此同时，斯托勒和他的男同事们宣扬医疗专业精神，他们认为这种品质使他们有别于庸医。
The AMA anointed men (and only men) who had medical education and practiced orthodox medicine as “regular” doctors, as opposed to “irregular” homeopaths and midwives.
AMA 指定接受过医学教育并从事正统医学的男性（而且仅限男性）为“正规”医生，而不是“非正规”顺势疗法医生和助产士。
(The organization didn’t admit its first female physician until 1876, the year Nancy died.) Regular doctors took the Hippocratic Oath and vowed not to induce miscarriages.
（直到 1876 年，也就是南希去世的那一年，该组织才接纳第一位女医生。）正规医生宣誓希波克拉底誓言，发誓不会造成流产。
In the 1870s, when Nancy was dying of an abortion at three months, AMA-affiliated physicians, who often doubled as politicians, were zealously promoting and pushing new antiabortion legislation.
1870 年代，当南希在三个月大时因堕胎而濒临死亡时，美国医学会附属的医生（通常兼任政治家）正在热心推动和推动新的反堕胎立法。
It’s likely that the doctor who signed Nancy’s death certificate considered himself a regular.
签署南希死亡证明的医生很可能认为自己是一名常客。
Delap had taken medical courses and, for a time, led his county’s chapter of the Wisconsin Medical Society.
德拉普曾学习过医学课程，并一度领导过威斯康星州医学会所在县的分会。
Like many regular doctors, he also served in the state legislature.
和许多普通医生一样，他也在州立法机构任职。
Maybe, along with his peers, he lamented how common abortion was.
也许，他和他的同龄人一样，对堕胎的普遍性感到遗憾。
How churches and the press refused to take a stand against it despite being pressured to do so.
尽管迫于压力，教会和媒体仍拒绝采取反对立场。
How women’s education and increasingly public information about abortion had caused a sharp decline in the nation’s birthrate.
妇女的教育和日益公开的堕胎信息如何导致国家出生率急剧下降。
And how women of his station weren’t reproducing as quickly as immigrant Catholic women.
以及他所在地位的女性如何没有像移民天主教女性那样快速生育。
“Where one living child is born into the world,” states an 1879 report by the Wisconsin Medical Society, “two are done away with by means of criminal abortion.” This was probably an exaggeration.
威斯康星州医学会 1879 年的一份报告指出：“世界上诞生一个活着的孩子时，就会有两个孩子因非法堕胎而被杀死。”这可能有点夸张。
Surveys from around the nation suggested that about one-third of pregnancies during this period were terminated intentionally.
全国各地的调查显示，这一时期约有三分之一的妊娠是故意终止的。
But if women kept it to themselves, who knew for sure?
但如果女性保守秘密，谁知道呢？
After all, abortion was a way to limit fertility privately.
毕竟，堕胎是私下限制生育能力的一种方式。
It was, writes Mohr in Abortion in America, “a uniquely female practice, which men could neither control nor prevent.” Some men called it “aggressively self-indulgent.”
莫尔在《美国堕胎》一书中写道，这是“女性独有的做法，男性既无法控制也无法阻止”。有些男人称之为“过分的自我放纵”。
As women sought to advance their status, regular doctors and politicians attacked abortion as “immoral, unwomanly, and unpatriotic,” writes Reagan.
里根写道，随着女性寻求提高自己的地位，普通医生和政客攻击堕胎“不道德、不女性化、不爱国”。
They typically refused to provide information about it or other birth control methods.
他们通常拒绝提供有关它或其他节育方法的信息。
For regular physicians and legislators, denying women’s rights to continue practicing reproductive autonomy was an existential battle.
对于普通医生和立法者来说，剥夺妇女继续实行生殖自主的权利是一场关乎生存的斗争。
If they couldn’t control white, Protestant, middle-class women, they would be outnumbered in the New World.
如果她们不能控制白人新教中产阶级女性，她们在新世界的数量就会处于劣势。
An 1847 caricature of an abortion provider.
1847 年的一幅堕胎服务提供者的漫画。
More often the practice was cloaked in euphemism.
更多时候，这种做法被委婉地掩盖。
(Wikimedia Commons)
（维基共享资源）
Nancy Ann Harris died on the 10th anniversary of her marriage to Frank.
南希·安·哈里斯在与弗兰克结婚十周年纪念日去世。
I’d like to think Frank was out of his mind with grief.
我想弗兰克已经悲痛欲绝了。
When Delap arrived from the village three miles east to record Nancy’s death, the men probably said little.
当德拉普从东边三英里的村庄赶来记录南希的死亡时，这些人可能没说什么。
Yet I wonder how Delap knew of Nancy’s previous abortions.
但我想知道德拉普是怎么知道南希以前堕胎的。
Maybe she didn’t conceal them from Frank, and in his grief and confusion, he told Delap.
也许她没有向弗兰克隐瞒这些事情，在悲伤和困惑中，他告诉德拉普。
Then again, it’s possible that Delap was the sort of country doctor who would, at the behest of favored clients, induce miscarriages.
话又说回来，德拉普也有可能是那种会在受青睐的客户的要求下导致流产的乡村医生。
One regular from Milwaukee reported on such a rural colleague in a letter to the Wisconsin Medical Journal .
密尔沃基的一位常客在给《威斯康星医学杂志》的一封信中报道了这样一位农村同事的情况。
The country doctor had confided that “we all do that kind of work when it is in a nice family and a girl has to be protected.” It wasn’t unusual for regular doctors to decry contraception and abortion to the public even as they provided the services covertly, at their discretion.
这位乡村医生透露说，“当在一个美好的家庭中，并且女孩必须得到保护时，我们都会做这种工作。”普通医生向公众谴责避孕和堕胎的情况并不罕见，即使他们自行决定秘密提供服务。
If Delap had helped Nancy, maybe he felt compelled to represent the AMA’s stance in the footnote to her death.
如果德拉普帮助了南希，也许他觉得有必要在她死亡的脚注中代表美国医学协会的立场。
Nancy’s death record is also stored in the state historical society’s digital archives, but she doesn’t appear in a search for “abortion.” Only 12 hits are returned for that term.
南希的死亡记录也存储在国家历史学会的数字档案中，但她没有出现在“堕胎”搜索中。该术语仅返回 12 个匹配项。
Most link to photographs from prochoice marches in the 1970s and 1990s.
大多数链接都指向 20 世纪 70 年代和 90 年代支持堕胎游行的照片。
None mention Dr. William H.
没有人提到 William H.
Brisbane, a scowling, heavy-browed Baptist preacher who migrated north from South Carolina and founded a village 60 miles east of where Nancy is buried.
布里斯班是一位愁眉苦脸、眉毛浓重的浸信会传教士，他从南卡罗来纳州向北移民，在南希埋葬地以东 60 英里处建立了一个村庄。
Like Frank and Delap, Brisbane was a Civil War veteran and is lauded elsewhere in the state archives for his outspoken opposition to slavery.
与弗兰克和德拉普一样，布里斯班也是一名内战老兵，并因直言不讳地反对奴隶制而在国家档案馆的其他地方受到赞扬。
He was also a doctor, politician, and antiabortion crusader.
他也是一名医生、政治家和反堕胎斗士。
Years before Nancy married Frank, Brisbane wrote and lobbied for a bill to make abortion a crime in Wisconsin.
在南希与弗兰克结婚前几年，布里斯班撰写并游说了一项法案，将堕胎定为威斯康星州的犯罪行为。
In 1859, Wisconsin passed Brisbane’s bill and became the third state to criminalize abortion before quickening.
1859年，威斯康星州通过了布里斯班法案，成为第三个将堕胎定为刑事犯罪的州。
The sentence for a woman who underwent an abortion was up to three months in jail and a $300 fine (about $10,000 today).
一名接受堕胎的妇女将被判处最高三个月的监禁和 300 美元的罚款（相当于今天的 10,000 美元）。
For an abortionist, it was second-degree manslaughter.
对于堕胎者来说，这是二级过失杀人罪。
Neither the public nor the legislature had asked for the bill.
公众和立法机关都没有要求该法案。
Brisbane acknowledged that his law was unlikely to be enforced—and for a while, it wasn’t.
布里斯班承认他的法律不太可能得到执行——而且有一段时间也没有得到执行。
Still, as he wrote to an AMA colleague, even if making abortion a crime didn’t result in convictions, it would surely “have a moral influence to prevent it to some extent.” But it didn’t.
尽管如此，正如他写给美国医学会同事的信中所说，即使将堕胎定为犯罪并不会导致定罪，它也肯定会“在一定程度上产生道德影响来防止堕胎发生”。但事实并非如此。
Virtually no one outside the medical establishment—certainly not Nancy, her sisters, cousins, or friends—thought of abortion as a crime.
事实上，医疗机构之外的人——当然不是南希、她的姐妹、表兄弟姐妹或朋友——认为堕胎是一种犯罪。
No 19th-century American woman went to jail for having one.
没有一个 19 世纪的美国女性会因为怀孕而入狱。
After all, the only way authorities could be certain that a woman had had an abortion was if she died as a result.
毕竟，当局可以确定一名妇女是否曾堕胎的唯一方法是她是否因此死亡。
Even so, AMA physicians and politicians kept pushing.
即便如此，美国医学协会的医生和政治家仍在不断推动。
At the federal level, the 1873 Comstock Act prohibited, among other things, advertisements for abortion services and abortifacients.
在联邦层面，1873 年《康斯托克法案》禁止堕胎服务和堕胎药的广告等。
This resulted in an embargo on publicly printed information related to abortion and a growing perception of the practice as immoral.
这导致公开印刷与堕胎有关的信息受到禁运，并且人们越来越认为这种做法是不道德的。
By 1880, every state had passed laws to prohibit terminating a pregnancy intentionally at any stage.
到 1880 年，每个州都通过了法律，禁止在任何阶段故意终止妊娠。
Nonetheless, women kept seeking abortions in large numbers.
尽管如此，仍有大量妇女寻求堕胎。
In Woman ’s Body, Woman’s Right (1976), Linda Gordon cites a judge’s estimate that in the state of New York alone, 100,000 abortions were performed annually throughout the 1890s.
在《女人的身体，女人的权利》（1976）中，琳达·戈登引用了一名法官的估计，仅在纽约州，整个 1890 年代每年就有 10 万例堕胎。
Soon after the turn of the century, other contraceptive practices became more widely publicized and available, with birth-control clinics opening in the 1920s and ’30s.
世纪之交后不久，随着节育诊所在 20 世纪 20 年代和 30 年代开业，其他避孕方法也得到了更广泛的宣传和普及。
America’s birthrate continued to drop until after World War II, when a resurgence in nationalism and a return to traditional gender roles produced a short-lived domestic revival and a baby boom.
美国的出生率持续下降，直到第二次世界大战后，民族主义的复苏和传统性别角色的回归导致了短暂的国内复兴和婴儿潮。
On the Sunday morning after Nancy’s death, Frank would have left the tasks of bathing and dressing her to a female relative or friend.
南希去世后的周日早上，弗兰克会把给她洗澡和穿衣的任务留给一位女性亲戚或朋友。
But he probably lifted her body into the coffin himself.
但他很可能亲自将她的尸体抬进棺材。
Say the day was sunny, the ground lightly covered in snow when he hitched the horses.
假设那天天气晴朗，当他套上马时，地面上覆盖着一层薄薄的雪。
His two little girls rode with him in the wagon while his older daughters and son walked behind.
他的两个小女儿和他一起坐在马车上，而他的大女儿和儿子则走在后面。
They ferried the casket to the cemetery by the same route that Nancy might have taken to collect herbs.
他们沿着南希采集草药的路线将棺材运送到墓地。
A bonfire had softened the newly frozen ground.
篝火软化了新结冰的地面。
A hole had been dug.
挖了一个洞。
A headstone was waiting.
一块墓碑正在等待着。
I would like to believe that Frank spent $5 he couldn’t really spare to purchase the headstone and have it engraved with Nancy’s name, birth and death dates, plus a tree of many branches to symbolize the reach of her life through eternity.
我愿意相信弗兰克花了 5 美元，他真的抽不出钱来购买墓碑，并在上面刻上南希的名字、出生和死亡日期，再加上一棵有许多树枝的树，象征着她生命的永恒。
Soon after Nancy’s death, Frank, who had moved to Wisconsin from Ohio, moved farther west, to Nebraska.
南希去世后不久，从俄亥俄州搬到威斯康星州的弗兰克又搬到了更西边的内布拉斯加州。
Abandoning the home that he and Nancy had made together might have been a measure of his sorrow.
放弃他和南希共同建造的家可能是他悲伤的一种程度。
He, the Civil War veteran, didn’t die in my township.
他，这位内战老兵，并没有死在我的乡镇。
If any tombstones from my cemetery washed downstream in the flood of 1978, one was more likely Nancy’s than a soldier’s.
如果我墓地的任何墓碑在 1978 年的洪水中被冲到下游，那么其中一个更有可能是南希的，而不是士兵的。
On the day I read aloud “Nancy Ann Harris” at our local historical society, I also learned of the fifth person listed as buried in the cemetery in my field: Florence Palmer.
在我在当地历史学会大声朗读《南希·安·哈里斯》的那天，我还得知了我所在领域的墓地中埋葬的第五个人：弗洛伦斯·帕尔默。
Nancy lived just south of my property; Florence lived just north.
南希住在我家的南边。佛罗伦萨住在北部。
“Palmer” was Nancy’s maiden name.
“帕尔默”是南希的娘家姓。
When Nancy died, Florence was 10—the right age to be Nancy’s niece by marriage.
南希去世时，弗洛伦斯 10 岁——正是成为南希结婚侄女的年龄。
I wonder what the adults told her about Nancy’s death.
我想知道大人们对南希的死告诉了她什么。
By the time Florence died in 1892, at age 26, the antiabortion laws that had swept the nation were finally being enforced.
1892 年，26 岁的弗洛伦斯去世时，席卷全国的反堕胎法终于开始执行。
Midwives and irregular doctors who induced miscarriages were prosecuted.
导致流产的助产士和非正规医生受到起诉。
Inquests following women’s deaths from abortion were exposing them.
妇女因堕胎死亡后的调查揭露了她们的真相。
Women’s conversations went deeper underground.
女性的对话更加深入地下。
Churches had joined the antiabortion movement.
教会加入了反堕胎运动。
Prominent feminists joined it, too, because they believed that those who sought abortions had been victimized by men, and they felt women shouldn’t be forced into sex with its dangerous consequences.
著名的女权主义者也加入了这一行列，因为她们认为那些寻求堕胎的人是男性的受害者，她们认为女性不应该被迫发生性行为，这会带来危险的后果。
Nancy’s generation would have known far more about abortion than women in the three generations that followed.
南希这一代人对堕胎的了解远比后来的三代女性要多。
Perhaps they talked about it even more freely than women do today.
也许他们比今天的女性更自由地谈论这个问题。
Florence’s death record lists the same cause as Nancy’s: puerperal peritonitis.
弗洛伦斯的死亡记录列出了与南希相同的原因：产后腹膜炎。
But no triple-daggered footnote indicates the circumstance.
但没有任何三刀脚注表明这种情况。
Given that Florence already had four children and three stepchildren, it wouldn’t surprise me if she died from abortion-related complications.
鉴于弗洛伦斯已经有四个孩子和三个继子女，如果她死于与堕胎相关的并发症，我也不会感到惊讶。
In rural Wisconsin in 1892, access to reliable information about “restoring the menses” was scarce.
1892 年，在威斯康星州的乡村，人们很难获得有关“恢复月经”的可靠信息。
Regular doctors wouldn’t provide it, obscenity laws prevented its public dissemination, and the experienced women of the community who might have counseled Florence had taken their wisdom to the grave.
普通医生不会提供这种服务，淫秽法律阻止了它的公开传播，社区中那些可能为弗洛伦斯提供咨询的经验丰富的女性已经把她们的智慧带入了坟墓。
As I walk through the cemetery in summer, my boots make impressions in the soil.
夏天，当我穿过墓地时，我的靴子会在土壤中留下印记。
The ground is lumpy, damp, and thick with daylilies that never bloom because of the shade.
地面凹凸不平、潮湿，长满了黄花菜，但由于阴凉，它们永远不会开花。
I wonder how many bones are buried beneath me.
我不知道我的身下埋着多少骨头。
I wonder where Nancy lies.
我想知道南希在哪里。
And I wonder what she’d think of my portrayal of her, this marker I’ve created in place of a headstone.
我想知道她会怎么看待我对她的描绘，我用这个标记来代替墓碑。
I remember the eavesdropping woman’s comment: “That Nancy must have been something else.” If we crossed paths at the historical society now, after all I’ve learned, I wouldn’t hesitate to speak up.
我记得那个偷听的女人的评论：“南希一定是别的东西。”如果我们现在在历史协会相遇，根据我所了解的情况，我会毫不犹豫地说出来。
I’d point out that her judgment is rooted in misapprehensions of the 21st century.
我想指出，她的判断源于对21世纪的误解。
Nancy’s family and neighbors must have found her death tragic.
南希的家人和邻居一定认为她的死很悲惨。
The women who stood by as her casket was lowered might have thought, Poor dear.
当她的棺材被放下时，站在一旁的妇女们可能会想，可怜的亲爱的。
Maybe even, It could have been any of us.
甚至，可能是我们中的任何一个人。
But they wouldn’t have thought the reason for her death shameful, any more than modern women would disparage a friend for being on the pill.
但他们不会认为她的死因是可耻的，就像现代女性不会因为朋友服用避孕药而贬低朋友一样。
Nancy Ann Harris wasn’t “something else.” Not for her time.
南希·安·哈里斯并不是“其他人”。不适合她的时间。
Although the doctor’s footnote to her death was exceptional, she was simply an ordinary woman, if perhaps more forthcoming than the other women whose deaths he’d attended.
尽管医生对她的死亡的脚注很特殊，但她只是一个普通的女人，也许比他参加过的其他死亡的女人更坦率。
Permission required for reprinting, reproducing, or other uses.
转载、复制或其他用途需获得许可。
Tamara Dean has written for Orion magazine and The Southern Review , among other publications.
塔玛拉·迪恩 (Tamara Dean) 曾为《猎户座》杂志和《南方评论》等出版物撰稿。
The author of the book The Human-Powered Home , she lives in Viola, Wisconsin.
她是《人力之家》一书的作者，住在威斯康星州维奥拉。
Her essay “Slow Blues,” published in the Autumn 2020 issue of the Scholar, was a National Magazine Award finalist.
她的文章《Slow Blues》发表在《学者》2020 年秋季刊上，入围国家杂志奖决赛。
Hilary Mantel, one of Britain’s most revered novelists, died this year at the age of 70.
英国最受尊敬的小说家之一希拉里·曼特尔 (Hilary Mantel) 今年去世，享年 70 岁。
She is beloved for her sweeping Wolf Hall trilogy, for which she won two Booker Prizes.
她因其影响广泛的《狼厅》三部曲而深受人们喜爱，并因此获得了两项布克奖。
But long before rehabilitating Thomas Cromwell’s reputation, Mantel was unparalleled in her crystalline dissections of power, whether between girls at the University of London or Dantonists in the French Revolution.
但早在恢复托马斯·克伦威尔的声誉之前，曼特尔就在对权力的清晰剖析中无与伦比，无论是在伦敦大学的女孩之间还是在法国大革命中的丹东主义者之间。
In honor of Mantel’s enormous contributions to literature, dive back into her Tudor world with Penelope Rowlands’s essay about one of the key power dynamics Mantel explored: that between Cromwell and Sir Thomas More.
为了纪念曼特尔对文学的巨大贡献，请通过佩内洛普·罗兰兹 (Penelope Rowlands) 的文章，深入了解她的都铎世界，这篇文章探讨了曼特尔探索的关键权力动态之一：克伦威尔和托马斯·莫尔爵士之间的权力动态。