Nasty Girls and Bastard Killers: Abortion Folklore Contesting Purity Culture
September 27, 2024
Work-in-Progress Seminar
Start time: 12:00 p.m.
End time: 1:00 p.m.
Location: Valentine House, Room 201 (920 W. Franklin St)
Description
In 14th century Scotland, the “savin tree” was such a prolific and commonly used abortifacient that its nickname was “bastard killer.” This abortifacient is mentioned in the Scottish Ballad “Mary Hamilton,” who was beheaded for daring to become impregnated by the King at a scant 15 years of age. In the much more popular Irish ballad of Tamlin, the protagonist Janet “plucks a leaf” to “throw the baebe from her” when she first learns of her pregnancy. Anecdotal stories tell of a saying in Indiana that the seeds of Queen Anne’s lace are “what nasty girls take to not have a baby.”
These breadcrumbs of folklore, signposts of the prolific and continuous nature of abortion throughout the centuries-also point to embedded messaging of morality, purity, and perhaps, autonomy. In some instances, the attempt of an abortion is the only action a protagonist can take to try and control their own life, in other cases it is indicative of value-laden moral judgment. In all of these instances, folklore reflects how we shape meaning with everyday occurrences, and its continuation signifies how these contentious issues still struggle to be reconciled and remain subjugated to misogyny and purity discourses.
This paper will use folklore and ballad scholarship to converge different modalities of individual power vs systemic oppression, misogyny vs positive sexualization, and the somatic numinous experience of balladry and folklore. What these whispers of folklore reflect are stories and moral condemnation that we see played out almost terrifyingly similarly for cycling people who have been criminalized for their abortions in the last 20 years such as Purvi Patel and Bei Bei Shuai. In investigating balladry and folk belief about common abortifacients, we also see that there is a lot of vagueness and (I argue) deliberate gray area about the moralities of abortion. These breadcrumbs are ultimately reflective of our own difficulties and misgivings about ending a pregnancy, but can also glean insight into how the violence enacted in these stories carries warnings and cries for vengeance through time and space.
About the Speaker
Paulina Guerrero, PhD is an artist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research interests and writing center on folklore, gender, reproductive health/rights/justice, Latinx feminisms, and feminist ecologies. Her extensive experience in reproductive rights, health, and justice led her to become the National Programs Director of All-Options; a reproductive justice organization that supports folks in all of their pregnancy experiences including parenting, abortion, and adoption. In 2022 she provided Congressional Testimony on Roe Reversal to the Energy and Commerce Committee and was also the first expert witness on abortion restrictions in Indiana litigation.
She has also worked as a grassroots counselor for the last 25 years providing emotional support through a holistic peer-recovery and harm-reduction model for various nonprofit and social work agencies. She has published peer-reviewed academic articles, magazine articles, and fantasy fiction.
When not doing too much work, she is exploring cities, and attempting some surfing. She’s an aging punk kid at heart and is probably listening to 90s grunge/hip-hop or feminist punk as you are reading this.