A packet of contraceptive pills. Credit: Annabelle Shemer from FlickrHas UK politics finally learnt to stop shaming women over their reproductive choices? In 2015 teen pregnancy rates have hit a 46 year low and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service recently announced that the number of teenagers seeking abortions has dropped. These encouraging statistics have been attributed to the government’s ten year plan (launched in 1998 and updated in 2010) to reduce teen pregnancy through community outreach, education and targeting at risk groups. What’s unusual about this proactive approach is that it doesn’t focus on shaming the women involved; materials distributed to support workers have focused on building positive connections and offering support to young mothers, while also educating them about their options. This may seem like a sensible approach, but UK politics has a long history of not being sensible when it comes to women's reproductive choices. The popular belief, supported by multiple pieces of legislation, has been that by making women the scapegoats for perceived social ills like promiscuity and unwanted pregnancy, women will recognise the error of their ways and stop doing all these things politicians and lobbyists don’t want them to do. So why are UK politicians so seduced by shame and have they finally been persuaded that it doesn’t work?
One of the first pieces of legislation to attempt to shame women into conforming to society's standards was the Contagious Diseases Act (CDA) in 1864. Introduced during the Crimean War and designed to prevent venereal disease in the armed forces; the CDA attempted to control the spread of syphilis by mandatory examination and treatment of sex workers in towns with soldiers stationed nearby. Men were exempt but women who were suspected of being sex workers were forcibly taken off the streets and subjected to compulsory pelvic examinations. These examinations were carried out at a time when a woman’s chastity was viewed as one of her most valuable attributes. A number of women attempted suicide after being wrongly accused of being sex workers. The authors of the CDA never did get around to examining the male carriers of syphilis and in 1869 it was extended to eighteen “at risk” districts despite no evidence that it was having a positive impact.
The idea that women are responsible for the both their own sexual behaviour and that of their partners was reinforced in 1881 when a Select Committee of the House of Lords sat to consider the law surrounding the protection of young women. The result of their considerations (and a prolonged media campaign) was that the age of consent was raised from 13 to 16, but the title of their report is striking: Law Relative to the Protection of Young Girls from Artifices to Induce Them to Lead a Corrupt Life. Once again legislation presented as being for the protection of women portrayed them as morally suspect. This law was designed to protect children from rape but girls as young as 13 could, according to the report, be susceptible to sexual temptation and must be kept from leading a “corrupt life”. The theory that women must be shamed in order to protect them has also been used to postpone legislation designed to give women greater freedom. A notable feature of debates around contraception, abortion and the morning after pill is politicians’ worry that women will take things “too far”: a view which became extremely popular in post-war Britain.
