Switzerland is presented as a destination where abortion was more readily tolerated than in France, offering a safer option to women who could afford to travel. Its brief appearance clarifies the unequal consequences of criminalization: the law constrained women broadly, but money and connections could soften its effects for some.

A Route Beyond the French Ban

In discussing abortion in France, the book contrasts women’s circumstances according to their resources. A married woman or one otherwise supported by a man, with money and useful contacts, could more easily obtain an abortion described as “therapeutic.” If necessary, she could travel to Switzerland, where the procedure was more liberally tolerated. This was one route around the restrictions imposed at home, not an option equally open to all.

Access and Inequality

Travel mattered alongside the means to secure competent, hygienic care and, when needed, anesthesia. Better-connected women could obtain help earlier and be treated respectfully; the account contrasts their relative security with the distress of an isolated woman without money, for whom pregnancy could become an ordeal with few safe choices. Switzerland therefore functions not simply as a place of refuge but as evidence that reproductive options were distributed according to economic and social advantage.

Significance in the Argument

The reference to Switzerland belongs to a broader critique of the gap between legal prohibition and lived practice. The book argues that criminalization did not eliminate abortion; rather, clandestine conditions exposed women to greater risks, while wealth could buy access to safer alternatives across the border. Switzerland’s significance is consequently comparative: it makes visible both the possibility of care under more permissive conditions and the injustice of making that possibility depend on privilege.