The Contagious Diseases Acts were passed by several different European nations during the middle of the nineteenth century and gave policeman the power to arrest prostitutes for the purpose of having them submit to mandatory venereal disease examinations. Women who were discovered to be infected would be interned in prison-style hospitals until they were either cured or died of natural causes. These measures were justified by advocates as the most effective method to shield men and their wives from the diseases of infected women. A large number of the women detained were in fact not prostitutes but were nonetheless compelled to undergo medical examination by police doctors in relation to other criminal investigations or the pressuring of other persons who were relatives or friends of the woman in the course of official investigations.

Many women in the nations concerned, most notably Britain and France, were outraged by such a law that they felt discriminated against women, for there were many abuses in its application and no equivalent statute applied to men. Josephine Butler and Elizabeth Wolstenholme were leaders of a repeal movement in Britain, The Ladies' Association Against the Contagious Diseases Act. They lectured across the country demanding the law be changed. Butler, a well-known orator active in a host of feminist-related causes, attracted huge audiences with her accounts of her own plight in having to comply with the act, the experience of which was probably due in part to official reaction to her fervent political activities. Many people were appalled by her frank manner in describing sexual matters and police brutality, which drew condemnation from a bevy of newspaper editors and columnists, but made here a heroine among more supportive writers, particularly suffragist pamphleteers.

Some women disagreed with this opposition, especially those with socially traditional or politically conservative backgrounds, as well as women in the nursing profession. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, administrator of the New Hospital for Women in London, thought the British Contagious Diseases Act was the only effective way of saving unknowing wives from venereal diseases they contracted from their adulterous husbands. However, more tolerant attitudes toward sexual indiscretions in European societies as well as a growing professionalization of national police forces led to decreased misuse and enforcement of the acts in those countries that had implemented them, presaging their repeal in all lands by the end of the nineteenth century.