This is an edited extract of Dr Klausen’s book, Abortion Under
Apartheid, published by Oxford University Press. Dr Klausen is associate
professor in the department of history at Carleton University in Ottawa
The 26 young women called to testify had been between the ages of 17
and 23 at the time of their abortions, and all were unmarried. All were
white, and it was their whiteness that aroused the authorities to
intervene in clandestine abortion.
As Dr Derk Crichton explained in court, criminal abortion was the
"major problem" in his unit; and Durban’s King Edward VIII Hospital for
blacks handled the greatest number of septic abortions in SA.
