“In 1914 it was estimated that 100,000 working class women took abortifacients every year, and by just before the Second World War a government investigation estimated the number of illegal abortions performed each year between 44,000 and 60,000. If self- induced miscarriages are added to that figure, the total could have been between 110,000 and 150,000 a year – comparable with figures today but in a much smaller population…. the government’s own survey …estimated that at least 40 percent of all miscarriages in the 1930s were in fact a result of induced abortions…. [a survey just before the Second World War found] that between 16 and 20 percent of all pregnancies ended in abortion.” (p. 31)
“…in 1938-39 nearly a third of all women conceived their first child before marriage, a figure that rose to to 42 percent of under 20s” getting married. (p. 32)
So how did this happen?
“The most common form of sexual intercourse pre-war was … the ‘knee-trembler’ – sexual intercourse standing up, often outdoors, which was ‘fast, furtive, and rarely fulfilling for young women’.” (p.28)
From Material girls: Women, men and work Lindsey German, bookmarks, 2007.
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