French Soap

French Soap

Abortifacient

With soap an illegal abortion was triggered earlier frequently. For this, a bar of soap was either introduced via a metal catheter directly into the uterus, or first dissolved in water and introduced via a balloon catheter or an enema container. This happened mostly in late pregnancy, after the 4th month. The tissue destructive action leads to inflammation of the uterus, causing the waters break and after a few days the dead embryo is expelled.



Often this involved but to serious infections with blood poisoning or an embolism, which many women died.
This sad past is inter alia held in several films such as 'Story of Women' or 'Vera Drake'.

Museum of Contraception and Abortion