Dorothy Thurtle
Dorothy Thurtle | |
---|---|
Born | Dorothy Lansbury 15 November 1890 Bow, East London, England |
Died | 28 February 1973 St Albans, Hertfordshire, England | (aged 82)
Occupation(s) | Politician, social activist |
Notable work | Abortion: right or wrong? (1940) |
Dorothy Thurtle (née Lansbury; 15 November 1890 – 28 February 1973) was a British women's right activist, a campaigner for contraceptive and abortion rights, and a Labour Party politician.[1]
Early life
She was the sixth child of the eight daughters and four sons of George Lansbury, politician and social reformer, and Labour Party leader from 1932 to 1935, and his wife Elizabeth Jane Lansbury (née Brine).[1]
Career
She was 16 when she became a member of the
In 1924, Thurtle and her husband founded the Workers' Birth Control Group.[1]
Thurtle was the general secretary of Shoreditch Trades Council and Labour Party, and in 1925, was elected to
Throughout her career, Thurtle was a tireless advocate for working-class women having free access to information on abortion, pressing the Labour Party on this, saying it made nonsense of their supposed commitment to sexual equality.[1]
In 1936, Thurtle became one of the earliest members of the
Birkett Committee dissenting report
Thurtle's most significant contribution to the cause of abortion rights reform was as a member of the
Thurtle publicly dissented the committee's conclusions and issued an influential minority report which approached the issue from a fertility standpoint.[8] Thurtle stated that the primary cause of abortion was a "high degree of fertility", a "stark reality" facing all fertile women, and argued that because many married women would face pregnancy every one or two years until their menopause, withholding access to fertility advice and birth control was "a form of class discrimination and penalisation",[6] particularly as maternal death rates rose rapidly after the fifth child.[5] Thurtle's report asserted that abortion was not riskier than childbirth or amateur operations, a view the British Medical Association agreed with – evidence from 95 practitioners provided to the committee by Arthur Leyland Robinson concluded that "setting aside all sentimental and ethical objections, legalised abortion ... would not produce any ... disadvantages and dangers inseparable from operations for the interruption of pregnancy".[9] Based on this, the minority report proposed the creation of local authority birth control clinics and the legalisation of abortion in various circumstances where the woman's life was not in immediate danger: for women who had already had four pregnancies, on eugenical grounds, and in cases of sexual crime, such as rape.[8][10]
Thurtle's report was praised by the
Personal life
In 1912, she married Ernest Thurtle (later MP for Shoreditch).[1] They had two children, a son, Peter, and a daughter, Helen.[1]
Legacy
London's Shoreditch Park contains a memorial garden in her name, laid out in about 1970, and close to the Pitfield Street/Mintern Street entrance.[13]
References
- ^ .
- ^ "The New L.C.C. Labour Gains In A Low Poll". The Times. 9 March 1946. p. 2.
- JSTOR 2651613.
- ^ Brookes 1988, p. 125.
- ^ ISBN 978-1447339113.
- ^ a b Brookes 1988, p. 126.
- ^ Brookes 1988, pp. 125–126.
- ^ JSTOR 23634733.
- ^ Brookes 1988, p. 124.
- ^ "Dorothy Thurtle (1890-1973)". Humanist Heritage. Humanists UK. Retrieved 26 September 2021.
- ^ a b Brookes 1988, p. 127.
- S2CID 143586253.
- ^ "London Gardens Online". www.londongardensonline.org.uk. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
- Brookes, Barbara L. (1988). Abortion in England, 1900-1967. London, England: Croom Helm. p. 125. ISBN 0709950462.