[Queen Victoria had been denouncing the Women's Rights movement] .. And after chloroform was introduced to ease the pains of childbirth, she demanded that it be used on her. Religious and medical conservatives were shocked. They said God had decreed that women must suffer in childbirth as atonement for the sins of Eve. But queen Victoria wouldn't accept this particular anti-woman's-rights dictum. She became one of the first women to use anesthesia during childbirth , and knighted Dr. James Simpson, the Scottish physician who developed this use of chloroform, though he was excommunicated by his church for doing so. .Miriam Gurko
About This Quote
Queen Victoria had been denouncing the Women's Rights movement. She was an early, fervent opponent of women's rights, saying that women were unfit for public life because they were so emotional. She tried to block the demand for suffrage in Britain. During this time, Queen Victoria was also involved in another fight over women's rights.
Many women used the technique of chloroform to ease their pain during childbirth. Queen Victoria was horrified at the idea of people being able to avoid the pain of childbirth by using anesthesia. When she heard that Dr.
James Simpson had developed a method for using chloroform during childbirth, she started investigating this new method in hopes of finding out how it worked and then outlawing it altogether.
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