Before professional medical care became widely available, mental illness was often viewed as a personal malady with social impacts. Mental illness did not spread to others like contagious diseases could, yet it still affected those around the mentally ill individual. Families were often the first to experience how mental illness shaped someone’s behavior and interactions… Read more →
Incarcerated and Infected: The Fragility of Our State Prison System During the COVID-19 Pandemic
In the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic crisis, policymakers were forced to answer hard-hitting ethical questions: how would resources including ventilation and vaccination doses be fairly allocated among citizens? Who would they prioritize, and how would they decide? Detailed as they were, allocation guidelines neglected to address and prioritize the needs of thousands who… Read more →
Abortion in the American Imagination: Before Life and Choice, 1880-1940 by Karen Weingarten
Abortion in the American Imagination takes us back to the early twentieth century, when American writers first dared to broach the controversial subject of abortion. Putting authors like Wharton and Faulkner into conversation with the era’s films and non-fiction, Karen Weingarten uncovers a vigorous public debate decades before Roe v. Wade. Along the way, she… Read more →
Abortion Care As Moral Work: Ethical Considerations of Maternal and Fetal Bodies, An Interview with Johanna Schoen
The timely anthology from Rutgers University Press, Abortion Care As Moral Work: Ethical Considerations of Maternal and Fetal Bodies, edited by Johanna Schoen, brings together the voices of abortion providers, counselors, clinic owners, neonatologists, bioethicists, and historians. The authors describe their motivations for offering or studying abortion care; discuss how anti-abortion regulations have made it… Read more →
Maternal-Child Separation in the Carceral State
In 1966, the American “war on crime” began with Lyndon B. Johnson’s Special Message to the Congress on Crime and Law Enforcement. In this speech, he emphasized community wellbeing as justification for a massive federal investment in the criminal legal system. In the final words of this address, he stated that “the ways we deal… Read more →
Her Heroine Mother: Maternity and British Secret Agents in World War II
In the waning months of World War II, news began to circulate that the British had been sending operatives to German-occupied Europe to conduct clandestine warfare and that some of them had been women. These female secret agents served as couriers, radio operators, and organizers in the French (F) Section of the Special Operations Executive… Read more →
No Real Choice: How Culture and Politics Matter For Reproductive Autonomy by Katrina Kimport
In the United States, the “right to choose” an abortion is the law of the land. But what if a woman continues her pregnancy because she didn’t really have a choice? What if state laws, federal policies, stigma, and a host of other obstacles push that choice out of her reach? Based on candid, in-depth… Read more →
Language Barriers and Poorer Health Outcomes
“I’m sorry to say this but we’ve found evidence of myocardial ischemia in your aortic valve. Now, we can either start you on a regimen of isosorbide or discuss plans for an angioplasty but we want to make sure you pick the option that best suits your needs.” Beyond the shock of hearing that the… Read more →
Anacleto Palabay in the Metropole: Public Health, Migration, and Deportation in the Case of a Filipino Leprosy Patient
Anacleto Palabay, a young Filipino domestic worker in Washington, D.C., was intent on returning home to the Philippines. His soon-to-be wife was waiting there for him and he was eager to build a life with her after making money while living in the United States. Palabay’s story was a common one among Filipina/o migrants to… Read more →
Reading Disability History Back into American Girl
I recently spent a series of afternoons digging through closets at my parents’ house, searching for my sisters’ and my once beloved American Girl collection. In boxes and boxes of doll clothes, furniture, and accessories, I found Molly McIntire’s nightstand, complete with a doll-sized hot water bottle inside. The hot water bottle was adorned with… Read more →