The fight against illegal abortion in twentieth century France cannot be reduced to a simple question of repression or coercion, as is revealed by the study of its origins, institutional frames and target population. The recommended and/or established instruments and means of action combined disciplinary systems aiming at controlling the body with more subtle techniques which made use of the moral and normative motivations of the subjects. The population – defined here as a group of individuals whose consent, and even more, whose subjectivization determine the achievement of the project that has been laid down – is therefore not only the object of public policy, but also one of its actors. Anti-abortion messages were couched in a way that worked on the sensibilities, moral sense and temporalities of the population. As a consequence, historians should not assume too quickly that penal measures were « ineffective », as could be inferred from the judicial statistics which show a low condemnation rate in regard to the number of abortions. Although the anti-abortion policy never achieved its primary purpose, it succeeded in influencing the population at different levels.