“Ultimo recurso”: das indicações do aborto terapêutico à operação cesariana (1845-1915)

Abstract

This dissertation examines the connection between the development of cesarean surgery and the gradual replacement of therapeutic abortion as the last resort for managing complicated births in Brazil between 1835 and 1915. I argue that the cesarean section marked a shift in how obstetric complications were understood and addressed, promoting a transition from the pelvic to the abdominal route as the preferred solution. This transformation is analyzed in relation to religious and legal discourses that increasingly condemned abortion throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, thereby fostering the advancement of cesarean surgery. Despite high maternal mortality rates associated with the procedure, some physicians actively defended and performed cesareans, opposing others who rejected it due to its harmful outcomes. The dissertation thus explores both the technical development of cesarean surgery and the infrastructure required for its implementation, within the broader context of the professionalization of obstetrics in Brazil.