Marie-Louise Giraud

Marie-Louise Giraud (French pronunciation: [maʁi lwiz ʒiʁo]; 17 November 1903 – 30 July 1943) was one of the last women to be executed in France. Giraud was convicted in Vichy France and was guillotined for having performed 27 abortions, one of which resulted in the death of the mother, in the Cherbourg area on 30 July 1943. Her story was dramatized in the 1988 film Story of Women directed by Claude Chabrol.

Background

Marie-Louise Giraud, at the age of 39, was guillotined on the morning of 30 July 1943, in the courtyard of the prison de la Roquette in Paris by executioner Jules-Henri Desfourneaux for having performed 27 abortions in the region of Cherbourg. She was the only faiseuse d'anges (French slang: literally "female maker of angels") to be executed for this reason. That said, a man was executed for the same reason later that year. Désiré Pioge was guillotined on 22 October 1943 for performing three abortions. Bolin had previously been twice convicted of performing illegal abortions, in 1935 and 1939. He served 18 months in prison for manslaughter in the second case after the mother died.

Coming from a poor family, Giraud was married to a sailor, with whom she had two children. She worked as a domestic housekeeper and laundress. From the beginning of World War II, she also rented rooms to prostitutes. She began to perform abortions, initially without compensation.

Political context

The law of 1920, which criminalized abortion, had the following aims: