THE PRACTICE OF PROCURING ABORTION
Procuring abortion in the old days appears to have been limited to women
of high rank who, for reasons of policy, were not allowed to have
children. When it is remembered that every lady of rank who married into
another tribe might bear children who, as _vasu_, would have a lien upon
every kind of property belonging to their mother's tribe, it is not
surprising that means were taken to limit the number of her offspring.
In a polygamous society every wife had an interest in preventing her
rivals from bearing sons who might dispute the succession with her own
offspring, and the chief wife wielded an authority over the inferior
wives that enabled her to carry her wishes into effect. Waterhouse
mentions that professional abortionists were sent in the train of every
lady who married out of the tribe, with instructions to procure the
miscarriage of her mistress. The Rev. Walter Lawry, who visited Mbau in
1847, declares, on the authority of all the resident missionaries, that
the practice was reduced to a system. But these motives did not operate
with the common people, who were seldom in a position to pay the
practitioner's fee, although, no doubt, dislike of the long abstinence
enjoined during suckling and disinclination to bear children to a man
they hated were motives strong enough to induce a few women in every
class to rid themselves of their children. The abortionist's craft was
then in the hands of a few professional experts, who made too good a
thing of their trade to trust their secrets to any but their daughters
who were to succeed to their practice.
All this is now changed. Both the motive and the means have spread far
and wide. The secrets of the trade are common property, and the act is
unskilfully attempted by the mother or older female relation of every
pregnant woman who cares to take the risk of an operation. By a strange
irony the rapid increase in the practice of abortion in recent years is
to some extent the doing of the missionaries. With the decay of the
custom of separating the sexes at night intrigues with unmarried women
increased, and to fight this growing vice the missionaries visited the
breach of the Seventh Commandment with expulsion from Church membership.
The girls have come to prize highly their _thurusinga_ (_lit._, entrance
into daylight), as communion with the Wesleyan Church is called, and,
when they find themselves pregnant, the dread of exposure, expulsion and
disgrace drive them to the usual expedients for destroying the evidence
of their frailty. Although by suppressing the usual feasts and
presentations in the case of illegitimate births, and by refusing the
sacrament of baptism to illegitimate children, the Mission authorities
may have given some impetus to the practice of abortion, there can be
little doubt that an illegitimate birth brought even more shame upon
families of every rank but the lowest in heathen times than at
present--unless the putative father was of high rank. There still exists
enough of the stern customary law that punished incontinency to cast a
social stigma upon the mother of an illegitimate child; there still
survives enough of the ethical code that refused to regard the
procurement of abortion as a criminal act to warrant women in choosing
what is to them the lesser of two evils. Moreover, the tendency to the
practice of abortion is cumulative. A girl induces miscarriage to escape
the shame of her first pregnancy. To the natural tendency of women who
have once miscarried to repeat the accident is added the temptation to
undergo, for the second time, an operation that has already been
successful. If Fijian women dislike the burden of tending children born
in wedlock, much more do they shrink from maternity coupled with the
disgrace of illegitimacy. The natives themselves quote instances of a
number of minor motives, such as the dread of the pains of childbirth,
and the determination of a wife not to bear children to a man she hates
or quarrels with--motives which have influenced women of every race from
the beginning of time, and which will continue to do so until the end.
[Pageheader: METHODS VEILED IN SECRECY]
A high birth-rate is not incompatible with the extensive practice of
abortion, where the proportion of stillbirth is also high, and the women
are so careful to conceal their practices that it is highly probable
that they conspire to represent to the native registrars as post-natal
deaths miscarriages that have been caused artificially. The natives of
Vanualevu are reputed to be the most adept in procuring abortion, and
the three provinces included in that island show the abnormal
stillbirth-rate of 10 per cent, of the total births, while their general
birth-rate is the lowest in the colony. It must be remembered that,
since procuring abortion is regarded as a criminal act, the practice is
now concealed, not from any sense of shame, but from fear of criminal
prosecution. The practice is veiled with so much secrecy that very few
prosecutions have taken place.
The methods of the Fijians are, as in other countries, both toxic and
mechanical. Certain herbs, called collectively _wai ni yava_ (medicines
for causing barrenness), are taken with the intention of preventing
conception, but the belief in their efficacy is not general. Some
midwives, however, say that, when taken by nursing mothers with the view
of preventing a second conception, they result in the death of the
child. Another midwife--one of the class to which the professional
abortionists belong--assured us that miscarriage resulted more
frequently from distress of mind at the discovery of pregnancy than from
the drugs that were taken. The abortives vary with the district and the
practitioner, but they are all the leaves, bark or root of herbs, chewed
or grated, and infused in water, and there is no reason why some of them
should not be as effective as the medicines employed for the purpose by
civilized peoples, though the mode of preparation is naturally more
crude, and the doses more nauseous and copious than the extracts known
to modern pharmacy. The "wise women" appear to know that drugs which
irritate the bowel have an indirect effect upon the pelvic viscera. Andi
Ama of Namata stated that old women caution young married women against
drinking _wai vuso_ (frothy drinks), meaning a certain class of native
medicine made from the stems of climbing plants whose saps impart a
frothy or soapy quality to the infusion, which are taken under various
pretexts, but generally as cathartics. None of these drugs have yet been
collected and subjected to examination or experiment, and if any
reliance can be placed on the belief placed by old settlers in the
efficacy of native remedies, it is possible that some of them will find
an honourable place in the Pharmacopoeia.
I do not think that many miscarriages are caused by the taking of
infusions alone, though there are undoubtedly cases in which a long
illness, or even death, has resulted from such attempts. Nevertheless,
even though it be extremely difficult to procure abortion by
administering herbs, as stated by one midwife, it is certain that every
determined interference with the course of nature must be attended with
danger.
Foremost among mechanical means is the _sau_, which is a skewer made of
_losilosi_ wood, or a reed. It is used, of course, to pierce the
membranes, and in unskilful hands it must be a death-dealing weapon.
Indeed, it must more often be fatal to the mother than to the foetus;
for Taylor has pointed out that this mode of procuring abortion is only
likely to succeed in the hands of persons who have an anatomical
knowledge of the parts,[83] and even the "wise women" have shown
themselves to be guiltless of even the most elementary anatomical
knowledge. There are, however, well-attested cases of persons living who
bear the mark of the _sau_ on their heads. In 1893 there was a man
living in Taveuni who bore the scar of such a wound on his right temple,
and the fact that the right parietal bone would be the part wounded by
an instrument used shortly before the commencement of labour in normal
presentations gives a strong colour of truth to the story of Andi
Lusiana and other trustworthy natives who knew the young man and the
circumstances of his birth.
[Pageheader: CRUDE OPERATIONS]
The various methods of inducing miscarriage by violence, such as are
practised by the Gilbert Islanders, who pound the abdomen of a pregnant
women with stones, or force the foetus downwards by winding a cord
tightly about her body, are not resorted to by the Fijians, but the
practice of _vakasilima_ (_lit._, bathing), a manual operation which
midwives are in the habit of performing with the object of alleviating
the ailments of pregnancy, do, either by accident or design, sometimes
result in a radical cure by causing the expulsion of the foetus. The
patient is taken into the river or the sea, and squats waist-deep in the
water with the "wise women," who subjects her to a vaginal examination
to enable her to ascertain the condition of the _os uteri_, and, through
this digital diagnosis, to determine the particular herb to be used
locally or internally. Some women assert that the examination under
water is adopted for cleanliness only, but most seem to believe that
there is virtue in the operation by itself without any subsequent herbal
treatment. As there are many practitioners who devote themselves
exclusively to this branch of practice, it is more than likely that it
is often used as a pretext for an attempt to procure abortion, for a
rough manipulation of the _os uteri_ may excite uterine contraction, and
so bring about expulsion of the foetus. Treatment by _vakasilima_ is
used in every form of disease in the abdominal region to which women are
subject, and the manipulation of the fundus and vagina is so rough that
the patient cries out with the pain.
_Bombo_ (massage) is sometimes practised upon pregnant women with the
result, if not the intention, of producing miscarriage. A few years ago
a notorious instance occurred at Rewa. A pregnant woman, who suffered
pain and discomfort, was received into the Colonial Hospital. After a
week's detention the surgeon advised her to go home, and await the term
of her gestation, since she was suffering from some functional
derangement common to her condition. She fell into the hands of a noted
amateur "wise woman," who diagnosed her complaint as possession by a
malignant spirit, and proceeded to exorcise it by the usual means of
forcible expulsion by massage. The pinching and kneading began at the
solid parts of the trunk, and when the evil spirit fled for refuge into
the limbs, they were continued towards the extremities, and the
apertures of the body, which are the natural avenues of escape for the
afflicting spirit. But the only spirit which the masseuse succeeded in
exorcising was the patient's own, for she died of the operation, and the
facts were concealed from the authorities for some weeks. The
magisterial inquiry did not elicit whether the object was abortion, or
merely the alleviation of pain.
A census taken in 1893 of the families of twelve villages showed that
out of 448 mothers of existing families 55 had been subject to abortion
or miscarriage. If these villages were representative of the people at
large, 12.7 per cent, rather more than one-eighth, of the child-bearing
women of the Fijians have to contend with this adverse condition, and,
as has been said, the provinces that have abnormally low and decreasing
birth-rates--Mathuata, Mbua, and Thakaundrove--are the very parts where
the "wise women" are noted for their skill as abortionists. These facts
would almost suffice in themselves to account for the decrease of the
race.
The Government has made half-hearted attempts to stamp out the practice
of abortion. The heavy penalty provided by Native Regulation No. 2 of
1887 having failed for want of prosecution, the native magistrates were
ordered to hold inquests in all cases of infant deaths, but when all the
witnesses are in league to conceal the truth, it would be surprising if
the intended effect of intimidating professional abortionists were
secured by such means. Post-mortem examinations of women dying in
premature confinement were thought of, but it was feared that the
repugnance which Fijians feel to these examinations would lead to the
concealment of death in such cases.
[Pageheader: FAILURE OF PROSECUTIONS]
It was hoped that the Travelling European Inspectors appointed in 1898
to go from village to village enforcing the Native Regulations might
initiate a few prosecutions, and so frighten the professional
abortionist, who now practises with complete impunity, for as soon as
the people have an object-lesson of the risk she is running in her
nefarious occupation, a quarrel among the women of the village will
bring forward informers to denounce her. But, since no legal penalty has
ever succeeded in stamping out a practice that is secretly approved by
the popular conscience, all that can be hoped for is a slight decrease
in the stillbirth-rate.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 83: _Medical Jurisprudence._]