“Other Things and Apparatuses”: Abortion Techniques and Technologies in Pre-Roe South Carolina

This article centers the methods and materials of illegal abortion in South Carolina from criminalization (1883) to Roe v. Wade (1973) as they appeared in criminal trial records, coroners’ reports, newspaper accounts, oral histories, and contemporary medical literature. The authors explore abortion techniques and technologies by analyzing the objects used in criminal abortion attempts. In particular, they focus on the common objects and substances that could be found in homes or local shops, such as herbs and emmenagogues, turpentine, and rubber tubing, which are medical technologies and obstetrical objects. The analysis of illegal abortions in pre-Roe South Carolina demonstrates that abortion providers, and especially Black laywomen providers, not only depended on but actively nurtured centuries of intergenerational knowledge of abortion techniques and tools. Furthermore, they innovated with everyday objects and professional instruments alike to provide abortions to Black and white women.