Idioms of Distress in East German Petitions for Abortion

During the 1950s and 1960s, abortion in the German Democratic Republic was, in effect, prohibited. Termination commissions turned down virtually all requests for an abortion. In some cases, the pregnant woman, her husband, or one of her parents challenged the denial in a petition to higher-ups who, they hoped, would overturn the decision. This talk analyzes the idioms of distress employed by petitioners to persuade doctors and socialist administrators of the dire health consequences of the pregnancy and/or birth. Their language, it argues, bespoke German cultural assumptions about the nature of illness as well as gendered assumptions about mental illness.