A breaking headline from 2014 reads: “Ireland Investigates Alleged Discovery of 800 Babies in Sewer Tank.”[1] Historian Catherine Corless, who […]
“Presumptive Testimony Only”: From Esther Davis to Patience Rousseau, Two Centuries of Criminalizing Pregnancy Loss
In summer 1802, a Baltimore jury convicted Esther Davis of murdering her newborn child. The newspapers that carried the story […]
“Your God Cannot Be Mine:” British Reactions to the 1992 Irish X Case
Around the world, abortion and reproductive rights are under fire.[1] Women in the Irish Free State are all too familiar […]
Review of Minji Lee, The Medieval Womb: Hildegard of Bingen’s Views on the Female Reproductive Body (Arc Humanities Press, 2025)
I teach a course called “Women and Medicine” that explores the history of women as medical practitioners, patients, and objects […]
‘A real woman would had buried her child’: Social Media Discussion of the Disposal of Fetal Remains
This essay is the second of a two-part series on fetal remains and cultural politics. Find the first part here. […]
After a Miscarriage, What Happens to the Fetus? The History is Complicated.
This essay is part one of a two-part series on fetal remains and cultural politics. Find the second part here. […]
In Pursuit of Purity: Environmental Affects, Reproduction, and the Promise of Bodily Sovereignty
In The New York Times on October 10, 2025, an article titled “The E.P.A. Followed Up on an Unusual Request […]
Trump, Tylenol, and 2000 Years of Bad Advice
On Monday, September 22, President Trump, flanked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., stated that pregnant women should not […]
After the Spike: A Liberal Argument for More Babies
“The Spike” – that is what demographer-economists Dean Spears and Michael Geruso call the dramatic rise in the world population […]
Miscarriage is a Crime Again
In 1650, a young, single English servant named Anne Greene miscarried into the privy and did not tell anyone. We […]
