Ep. 106 Madame Restell: The "Wickedest Woman in New York" and Why Abortion Really Became Controversial in the US

History Fix

Amidst the chaos of 19th century New York City, one poor immigrant woman named Ann Lohman managed to climb her way out of the slums and into a brownstone mansion on 5th avenue. But her means of doing this rubbed some people the wrong way. Ann, alias Madame Restell, was a notorious abortionist operating in the city with satellite offices in Philadelphia and Boston. She built an empire selling married women birth control and performing procedures to help them end unwanted pregnancies. Soon after she began this profitable practice, there were many who hoped to take her down, put a stop to it. But not for the reasons you might expect. Not for the reasons people oppose abortion today. Turns out, abortion, though mostly unseen and unspoken of, has been mostly an accepted necessity throughout history. It wasn’t until the mid 1800s when women like Madame Restell rose up, challenging the status quo that abortion became controversial. Let’s fix that.

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Sources:

• Smithsonian Magazine "Madame Restell: The Abortionist of 5th Avenue"
• Science History Institute "How Notorious Abortionist Madame Restell Built a Drug Empire"
• The New York Historical Society "Life Story: Ann Trow Lohman, a.k.a Madame Restell"
• The New York Historical Society "Urbanization"
• Johns Hopkins University "A Brief History of Abortion in the US"
• CNN "Abortion is ancient history: Long before Roe, women terminated pregnancies"

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