Reproduction History Syllabus
The History and Politics of Reproduction, Before and After Roe
A Syllabus
Thank you for helping Nursing Clio create this syllabus, which we hope will be useful to both teachers and learners. We are looking to build a broad and inclusive syllabus and welcome your suggestions for additional resources. Please submit your suggestions using our Google Form. Be sure to include hyperlinks to readings accessible online, and full citations for books, articles, chapters, and media resources.
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US History
Abortion
Books
- Leslie J. Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867–1973 (University of California Press, new ed. 2022).
- Joshua Prager, The Family Roe: An American Story (W. W. Norton & Co., 2021).
- Rickie Solinger, Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America (NYU Press, 2005; 2019).
- Rickie Solinger, ed. Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle, 1950–2000 (University of California Press, 1998).
- Lauren G. Berlant, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship (Duke Univerity Press, 1997).
- Johanna Schoen, Abortion after Roe (University of North Carolina Press, 2016).
- Diana Greene Foster, The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, A Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having–or Being Denied–An Abortion (Scribner, 2021).
- David A. Grimes, with Linda G. Brandon, Every Third Woman in America: How Legal Abortion Transformed Our Nation (Daymark Publishing, 2014).
- Janet Farrell Brodie, Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America (Cornell University Press, 1994).
- Sara Matthiesen, Reproduction Reconceived: Family Making and the Limits of Choice after Roe v. Wade (University of California Press, 2021).
- Becca Andrews, No Choice: The Destruction of Roe v. Wade and the Fight to Protect a Fundamental American Right (Public Affairs, 2022).
- Erica Millar, Happy Abortions: Our Bodies in the Era of Choice (Zed Books, 2017).
- Carol Sanger, About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in Twenty-First-Century America (Belknap of Harvard University Press, 2017).
- Ziad Munson, Abortion Politics (Polity Press, 2018).
- Shannon Stettner, Karina Ackerman, and Kristin Burnett, eds., Transcending Borders: Abortion in the Past and Present (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
- M. N. Olasky, The Press and Abortion, 1838-1988 (Hillsdale: L. Erlbaum Associates).
- Kath Browne and Sydney Calkins, eds. After Repeal: Rethinking Abortion Politics (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).
- Aideen Quilty, Sinéad Kennedy, and Catherine Conlon, eds., The Abortion Papers Ireland: Volume 2 (Cork: Cork University Press, 2015)
Articles
- Kelly O’Donnell, “Reproducing Jane: Abortion Stories and Women’s Political Histories,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society vol. 43, no. 1 (Autumn 2017): 77-96.*
- Julie Palmer, “Seeing and Knowing: Ultrasound Images in the Contemporary Abortion Debate,” Feminist Theory 10, no. 2 (August 2009): 173–89.*
- Francesca Moore, “‘Go and see Nell; She’ll put you right’: The Wisewoman and Working-Class Health Care in Early Twentieth-century Lancashire,” Social History of Medicine 26, no. 4 (November 2013): 695–714.*
- Barbara Baird and Erica Millar, “More than Stigma: Interrogating Counter Narratives of Abortion,” Sexualities, 22, nos. 7–8 (October 2019): 1110–1126.*
- Cynthia R. Daniels, Janna Ferguson, Grace Howard, and Amanda Roberti, “Informed or Misinformed Consent? Abortion Policy in the United States,” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 41, no. 2 (April 2016): 181–209.
- Dovile Vilda, Maeve E. Wallace, Clare Daniel, Melissa Goldin Evans, Charles Stoecker, and Katherine P. Theall, “State Abortion Policies and Maternal Death in the United States, 2015‒2018,” American Journal of Public Health 111 (2021): 1696–1704.
- Cornelia Hughes Dayton, “Taking the Trade: Abortion and Gender Relations in an Eighteenth-Century New England Village,” The William and Mary Quarterly 48 (1991): 19-49.
- Shonagh Hill, Sarah Hoover, Mary McAuliffe, and Katherine Side, eds., Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, Special Issue on Repealing the 8th: Irish Reproductive Activism 6 (2022).
Essays
- Sarah Pripas, “Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles: A Brief History of Self-Induced Abortion,” Nursing Clio, 2016.
- R.E. Fulton, “Mail-Order Abortion: A History (and a Future?),” Nursing Clio, 2016.
- Gillian Frank and Ronit Y. Stahl, “The Miseries and Heartbreak of Backstreet Abortions: Before and After Roe,” Nursing Clio, 2017.
- Cara Delay, Cora Webb, Regina Day, and Madeleine Ware, “‘No-Tell Motels’: Abortion in Pre-Roe South Carolina,” Nursing Clio, 2018.
- Linda K. Kerber, “The 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade: A Teachable Moment,” Perspectives on History, October 2012.
- Rebecca Kluchin, “If Courts Recognize Fetal Personhood, Women’s Rights are Curtailed,” Made by History, The Washington Post, May 12, 2022.
- Eugene Reznik, From Lemon Rinds to Knitting Needles: a Visual History of Abortion and Birth Control, Hopes and Fears.
- Kelly O’Donnell and Lauren McIvor Thompson, “It Doesnt Have to Be the End for US Abortion Rights,” History Workshop Online.
- Marcia Bucur and Kristen Ghodsee, “How Banning Abortion Will Transform America,” Project Syndicate, May 15, 2019.
Media
- Dig: A History Podcast (audio), “Jane Roe & The Pill”
- Dig: A History Podcast (audio), “Early American Family Limitation”
- Slate (audio), Slow Burn season 7: Roe v. Wade.
- You’re Wrong About, (audio) “Roe v. Wade“
Contraception and Birth Control
Books
- Linda Gordon, The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America (University of Illinois Press, 2007) [updated edition of Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right].
- Linda Gordon, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: Birth Control in America (Penguin, 1990).
- Susan E. Klepp, Revolutionary Conceptions: Women, Fertility, and Family Limitation in America, 1760-1820 (University of North Carolina Press, 2009).
- Carole R. McCann, Birth Control Politics in the United States, 1916–1945 (Cornell University Press, 1994).
- Elaine Tyler May, America and the Pill (Basic Books, 2011).
- Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, On the Pill: A Social History of Contraceptives, 1950–1970 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).
Articles
- Jane Marcellus, “My Grandmother’s Black-Market Birth Control: ‘Subjugated Knowledges’ in the History of Contraceptive Discourse,” Journal of Communication Inquiry, 27, no. 9 (January 2003): 9–28.
- Joanna N. Lahey, “Birthing a Nation: The Effect of Fertility Control Access on the Nineteenth-Century Demographic Transition,” The Journal of Economic History 74, no. 2 (2014): 482-508.
- Mary Dudziak, “Just Say No: Birth Control in the Connecticut Supreme Court Before Griswold v Connecticut,” Iowa Law Review 75 (2010): 915-939.
Sexual Education
Books
- Jeffrey Moran, Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the 20th Century (Harvard University Press, rev. ed. 2002).
- Courtney Q. Shah, Sex Ed, Segregated: The Quest for Sexual Knowledge in Progressive-Era America (University of Rochester Press, 2015).
- Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Classroom Wars: Language, Sex, and the Making of Modern Political Culture (Oxford University Press, 2017).
- Jessica Fields, Risky Lessons: Sex Education and Social Inequality (Rutgers University Press, 2008).
- Jennifer Hirsch & Shamus Khan, Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2020).
- Alexandra M. Lord, Condom Nation: The U. S. Government’s Sex Education Campaign from World War I to the Internet (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010)
- M.E. Melody and Linda M. Peterson, Teaching America About Sex: Marriage Guides and Sex Manuals from the Late Victorians to Dr. Ruth (New York: New York University Press, 1999)
- Susan K. Freeman, Sex Goes to School: Girls and Sex Education Before the 1960s (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008)
Articles
- Julian Carter, “Birds, Bees, and Venereal Disease: Toward an Intellectual History of Sex Education,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, 10, no. 2 (2001): 213–49.*
Providers
Books
- Carole E. Joffe, Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortions Before and after Roe v. Wade (Beacon Press, 1996).
- Susan Wicklund, This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor (Public Affairs Reprint, 2008).
- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, 1785–1812 (Vintage Books, 1990).
- Willie Parker, Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice (37 Ink, 2018).
- Jean H. Baker, Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion (Hill & Wang, 2011) .
- Rebecca J. Tannenbaum, The Healer’s Calling: Women and Medicine in Early New England (Cornell University Press, 2008).
- Cathy Moran Hajo, Birth Control on Main Street: Organizing Clinics in the United States, 1916-1939 (University of Illinois Press, 2010).
Medicalization
Books
- Sara Dubow, Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America (Oxford University Press, 2017).
- Nathan Stormer, Sign of Pathology: U.S. Medical Rhetoric on Abortion, 1800s-1960s (Penn State University Press, 2016).
- Daniel Skinner, Medical Necessity: Health Care Access and the Politics of Decision Making (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019).
- Monica Casper, The Making of the Unborn Patient: A Social Anatomy of Fetal Surgery (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998).
Articles
- Lauren MacIvor Thompson, “The Presence of a Monstrosity”: Eugenics, Female Disability, and Obstetrical-Gynecologic Medicine in Late 19th-Century New York,” Miranda 15 (2017): [online].
- Diana Greene Foster, “The Court Is Ignoring Science,” Science, 376, no. 6595.
- Daniel Skinner, “The Politics of Medical Necessity in American Abortion Debates,” Politics & Gender 8 (2012), 1-24.
Crime and Criminalization
Books
- Regina Morantz-Sanchez, Conduct Unbecoming a Woman: Medicine on Trial in Turn-of-the-Century Brooklyn (Oxford University Press, 1999).
- Alicia Gutierrez-Romine, From Back Alley to the Border: Criminal Abortion in California, 1920–1969 (University of Nebraska Press, 2020).
- Amy Gilman Srebnick, The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers: Sex and Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York (Oxford University Press, 1997).
Articles
- Elizabeth Evens, “Plainclothes Policewomen on the Trail: NYPD Undercover Investigations of Abortionists and Queer Women, 1913–1926,” Modern American History, 4, no. 1 (2021): 49–66.
- Grace Howard, “The Pregnancy Police: Surveillance, Regulation, and Control,” Harvard Law and Policy Review 14 (2020): 347–63.
Essays
- Karen Abbott, “Madame Restell: The Abortionist of Fifth Avenue,” Smithsonian Magazine, November 2012.
- Leslie J. Reagan, “The First Time Abortion was a Crime,“ Slate, June 1, 2022.
- Evan Elizabeth Hart, “Manslaughter or Necessary Operation? Abortion and Murder in Early 20th Century Missouri,” Nursing Clio, 2021.
Media
- Dig: A History Podcast (audio), “The Suitcase Murder: Abortion, Mystery, and Murder in 20th-Century America”
- Dig: A History Podcast (audio), “Anthony Comstock: Sex, Censorship, and the Power of Policing the Subjective”
- Criminal (audio), “The Procedure”
Religion
Books
- R. Marie Griffith, Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics (Basic Books, 2017).
- Daniel K. Williams, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)
Articles
- Madeline Ware, “‘Defining “Problem Pregnancies’: Religion, Medicine, and Pre-Roe Politics of Abortion in the South Carolina Clergy Consultation Service,” Journal of the Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science 3, no. 1 (2021): 23–40.
- Shelby M. Balik, “Delivery and Deliverance: Religious Experiences of Childbirth in Eighteenth-Century America,” Church History 91 (March 2022): 62-82.
Essays
- Madeleine Ware, “‘Our Moral Obligation:’ The Pastors that Counseled in Pre-Roe South Carolina,” Nursing Clio, 2019.
- Kathryn Pogin, “The ‘Original Sin’ of the Religious Right,” Slate, May 5, 2022.
Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Pregnancy Loss
Books
- Judith Walzer Leavitt, Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750–1950 (Oxford University Press, 1986, 2016).
- Lara Freidenfelds, The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy: A History of Miscarriage in America (University of Oxford Press, 2020).
- Shannon Withycombe, Lost: Miscarriage in Nineteenth-Century America (Rutgers University Press, 2018).
- Ann Fessler, The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption before Roe v. Wade (Penguin, 2007).
- Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Wick, Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births (MIT Press, 2021).
- Nick Hopwood, Rebecca Flemming, and Lauren Kassell, eds., Reproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day (Cambridge University Press, 2018).
- Clare Daniel, Mediating Morality: The Politics of Teen Pregnancy in the Post-Welfare Era (University of Massachusetts Press, 2017).
- Rayna Rapp, Testing the Woman, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America (Routledge, 1999).
- Monica Casper, Babylost: Racism, Survival, and the Quiet Politics of Infant Mortality, from A to Z (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2022)
- Wendy Kline, Coming Home: How Midwives Changed Birth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019)
Articles
- Damien Riggs, Ruth Pearce, Carla A. Pfeffer, Sally Hines, Francis Ray White, and Elisabetta Ruspini, “Men, Trans/Masculine, and Non-binary People’s Experiences of Pregnancy Loss: An International Qualitative Study,” BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, August 2020.
- Peter Kastor and Conevery Bolton Valencius, “Sacagawea’s “cold”: Pregnancy and the Written Record in the Lewis and Clark Expedition,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 82, no. 2 (Summer 2008): 276–309.*
- Sara DiCaglio, “Placental Beginnings: Reconfiguring Placental Development and Pregnancy Loss in Feminist Theory,” Feminist Theory 20, no. 3 (August 2019): 283–98.
- Sara DiCaglio, “Staging Embryos: Pregnancy, Temporality and the History of the Carnegie Stages of Embryo Development,” Body & Society 23, no. 2 (June 2017): 3–24.
- Kate Parsons, “Feminist Reflections on Miscarriage, in Light of Abortion,” International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 3, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 1–22.
Media
- Dig: A History Podcast (audio), “Miscarriage in Nineteenth Century America”
- Dig: A History Podcast (audio), “A History of Childbirth in America”
Legal History
Books
- Mary Ziegler, Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
- Mary Ziegler, Beyond Abortion: Roe v. Wade and the Battle for Privacy (Harvard University Press, 2018).
- Jeanne Flavin, Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women’s Reproduction in America (New York University Press, 2010).
- Jael Silliman and Anannya Bhattacharjee, eds., Policing the National Body: Race, Gender, and Criminalization (South End Press, 2002).
- James Mohr, Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolutions of National Policy, 1800-1900 (Oxford University Press, 1979).
- Sally Sheldon, Beyond Control: Medical Power and Abortion Law (Pluto Press, 1997).
Articles
- Reva Siegel, “Reasoning from the Body: A Historical Perspective on Abortion Regulation and Questions of Equal Protection,” Stanford Law Review 44, no. 2 (1992): 261–381.
Activism
Books
- Laura Kaplan, The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service (Knopf, 1995, 2016).
- Hannah Dudley-Shotwell, Revolutionizing Women’s Healthcare: The Feminist Self-help Movement in America (Rutgers University Press, 2020).
- Wendy Kline, Bodies of Knowledge: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Women’s Health in the Second Wave (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).
Articles
- Carly Thomsen, “From Refusing Stigmatization toward Celebration: New Directions for Reproductive Justice Activism,” Feminist Studies, 39, no. 1 (2013): 149–58.
- Denise Lynn, “Anti-Nazism and the Fear of Pronatalism in the American Popular Front,” Radical Americas 1, no. 1 (2016).
- Vera Mackie and Sharon Crozier-De Rosa, “Rallying Women: Activism, Archives, and Affect,” Women’s History Review 31 (2022): 975-1001.
Essays
- Michelle Moravec, “What Feminists Did Last Time Abortion Was Illegal,” Nursing Clio, 2021.
- Gillian Frank, “People Helping Women Get Abortions Pre-Roe Were Heroes. It Wasn’t Enough,” Slate, June 21, 2022.
Media
- Tia Lessen and Emma Pildes, directors, The Janes, HBO Films, 2022.
Anti-Abortion & Right-to-Life Movements
Books
- Jennifer L. Holland,Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement (University of California Press, 2020).
- Karissa Haugeberg, Women against Abortion: Inside the Largest Moral Reform Movement of the Twentieth Century (University of Illinois Press, 2017).
- James Risen & Judy L. Thomas, Wrath of Angels: The American Abortion War (Basic Books, 1999).
- Patricia Baird-Winder and Eleanor J. Bader, Targets of Hatred: Anti-Abortion Terrorism (Palgrave St. Martin’s Press, 2001).
- Daniel K. Williams, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade (Oxford University Press, 2019).
Articles
- Gillian Frank, “The Colour of the Unborn: Anti-Abortion and Anti-Bussing Politics in Michigan, United States, 1967–1973,” Gender & History 26, no. 2 (August 2014): 351–78.*
- Prudence Flowers, “‘Voodoo Biology’: The Right-To-Life Campaign Against Family Planning Programs in the United States in the 1980s,” Women’s History Review 29, no. 2 (2020): 331–56.
Essays
- Jacqueline Mercier Allain, “The Anti-Abortion Politics of White Women,” Nursing Clio, 2019.
Media
- Someone Knows Something season 7, (audio) The Abortion Wars, CBC Podcasts
Reproductive Justice
Books
- Patricia Zavella, The Movement for Reproductive Justice: Empowering Women of Color through Social Activism (New York University Press, 2020).
- Loretta J. Ross and Rickie Solinger, Reproductive Justice: An Introduction (University of California Press, 2017).
- Jael Silliman, Marlene Gerber Fried, Loretta Ross, and Elena R. Gutiérrez, Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice (Haymarket Books, 2016).
- Barbara Gurr, Reproductive Justice: The Politics of Healthcare for Native American Women (Rutgers University Press, 2014).
- Whitney Peoples, Loretta J. Ross, Erika Derkas, and Pamela Bridgewater, Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundation, Theory, Practice, Critique (Feminist Press, 2017).
- Zakiya Luna, Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice (New York University Press, 2020).
Articles
- Patricia Zavella, “Intersectional Praxis in the Movement for Reproductive Justice: The Respect ABQ Women Campaign,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 42, no. 2 (Winter 2017): 509–33.*
- Loretta J. Ross, “Reproductive Justice as Intersectional Feminist Activism,” Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Society, and Culture 19, no. 3 (2017), 286–314.*
- Clare Daniel, “Compromising Justice: Reproductive Rights Advocacy in the Time of Trump,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 43, no 1 (2022): 68–92.
Race
Books
- Rickie Solinger, Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe v. Wade (Rutledge, 2002).
- Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (Vintage Books, 1998).
- Khiara Bridges, Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Radicalization (University of California Press, 2011).
- Laura Briggs, Taking Children: A History of American Terror (University of California Press, 2020).
- Brianna Theobald, Reproduction on the Reservation: Pregnancy, Childbirth and Colonialism in the Long Twentieth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2019).
- Shannon Gibney and Kao Kalia Yang, What God Is Honored Here? Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color (University of Minnesota Press, 2019).
- Marie Jenkins Schwartz, Birthing a Slave: Motherhood and Medicine in the Antebellum South (Harvard University Press, 2006).
- Londa Schiebinger, Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World (Harvard University Press, 2004).
- Sasha Turner, Contested Bodies: Pregnancy, Childrearing, and Slavery in Jamaica (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017).
- Jennifer L. Morgan, Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
- Alys Eve Weinbaum, The Afterlife of Reproductive Slavery: Biocapitalism and Black Feminism’s Philosophy of History (Duke University Press, 2019).
- Jennifer Nelson, Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement (New York University Press, 2003).
Articles
- Madeleine Ware, Cara Delay, and Beth Sundstrom, “Abortion and Black Women’s Reproductive Health Networks in South Carolina, 1940–1970,” Gender & History 32, no. 3 (October 2020): 637–56.*
- Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, “Youth of Color and California’s Carceral State: The Fred C. Nelles Correctional Facility,” Journal of American History 102, no. 1 (June 2015): 47–60.
- Meg Devlin O’Sullivan, “Informing Red Power and Transforming the Second Wave: Native American Women and the Struggle Against Coerced Sterilization in the 1970s,” Women’s History Review (25) 2016, 965-982.
Essays
- Amanda Brennan, “Abortion Rights and the Racist Origins of Having It All,” Nursing Clio, 2022
- P. Mimi Niles and Michelle Drew, “Constructing the Modern American Midwife: White Supremacy and White Feminism Collide,” Nursing Clio, 2020.
- Crystal Webster, “Enslaved Women’s Sexual Health: Reproductive Rights as Resistance,” Black Perspectives, December 1, 2021.
Media
- Dig: A History Podcast (audio), “Choice, Sterilization, and Eugenics in 20th Century Puerto Rico”
- Sexing History (audio), “Abortion on Trial”
Eugenics
Books
- Johanna Schoen, Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare (University of North Carolina Press, 2005).
- Rebecca Kluchin, Fit to Be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980 (Rutgers University Press, 2009).
- Wendy Kline, Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom (University of California Press, 2005).
- Morningstar Mercredi and Fire Keepers, Sacred Bundles Unborn (Friesen Press, 2021).
- Dagmar Herzog, Unlearning Eugenics Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in Post-Nazi Europe (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018).
- Adele Clark, “Subtle Forms of Sterilization Abuse: A Reproductive Rights Analysis,” in Living with Contradictions: Controversies in Feminist Social Ethics (London: Routledge Press, 1994).
- Elizabeth Catte, Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia (Cleveland: Belt Publishing, 2021)
Articles
- Jane Lawrence, “The Indian Health Service and the Sterilization of Native American Women,” American Indian Quarterly 24, no. 3 (2000): 400–19.*
- Alexandra Minna Stern and Natalie Lira, “Mexican Americans and Eugenic Sterilization: Resisting Reproductive Injustice in California, 1920-1950,” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 39, no. 2 (2014): 9–34.*
Media
- Renee Tajima-Peña, dir., No Màs Bebes: The Fight for Reproductive Rights after the Sterilization of Mexican Immigrant Mothers in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s, PBS, 2015.
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, The Eugenics Archive
Disability
Books
- Leslie J. Reagan, Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities and Abortion in Modern America (University of California Press, 2012).
- Don Kulick and Jens Rydström, Loneliness and Its Opposite: Sex, Disability, and the Ethics of Engagement (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015).
- Michael Gill, Already Doing It: Intellectual Disability and Sexual Agency (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015)
Articles
- Katherine Castles, “Quiet Eugenics: Sterilization in North Carolina’s Institutions for the Mentally Retarded, 1945–1965,” Journal of Southern History 68, no. 4 (November 2002): 849–78.*
Media
- Sexing History (audio), “Sherri”
Cultural Representations
Books
- Jenell Johnson, Graphic Reproduction: A Comics Anthology (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018).
- Karen Hearn, Portraying Pregnancy: From Holbein to Social Media (Paul Holberton Publishing, 2020).
- Chelsea Phillips, Carrying All Before Her: Celebrity Pregnancy and the London Stage, 1689–1800 (University of Delaware Press, 2022).
- Victoria Louise Newton, Everyday Discourses of Menstruation: Cultural and Social Perspectives (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
Articles
- Cordelia Freeman, “Feeling Better: Representing Abortion in ‘Feminist’ Television,” Culture, Health & Sexuality 24, no. 5 (2022): 597–611.
Essays
- Marisa Crawford, “The Back Alley Abortion that Almost Didn’t Make It Into ‘Dirty Dancing’,” VICE, August 21, 2017.
- Heather Schwedel, “Movies that Depict Abortion Shouldn’t Leave Out the Money Part,” Slate, May 31, 2022.
- “Dirty Dancing to Knocked Up: Abortion in the Movies,” (audio), Washington Post, June 3, 2022.
Media
- Leah Hayes, Not Funny Ha-Ha: A Handbook for Something Hard (Fantagraphics Books, 2015)
- Abortion Is a Human Right (Spotify playlist)
- American Hysteria (audio), Teenage Sex
- Literary Abortion (with links)
Material Histories
- Gillian Frank, “The Abortionist,” Perspectives on History, December 2021.
International Contexts
Books
- Cassia Roth, A Miscarriage of Justice: Women’s Reproductive Lives and the Law in Early Twentieth Century Brazil (Stanford University Press, 2020).
- Betsy Hartmann, Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control (Haymarket Books, 2016).
- Camilla Fitzsimons and Sinead Kennedy, Repealed: Ireland’s Unfinished Fight for Reproductive Rights (Pluto Press, 2021).
- Una Mullally, ed., Repeal the 8th: A Collection of Stories, Essays, Poetry and Photography Around the Movement for Reproductive Rights in Ireland (Unbound, 2018).
- John Christopoulos, Abortion in Early Modern Italy (Harvard University Press, 2021).
- Christabelle Sethna and Gayle Davis, eds., Abortion across Borders: Transnational Travel and Access to Abortion Services (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019).
- Tyrene White, China’s Longest Campaign: Birth Planning in the People’s Republic, 1949–2005 (Cornell, 2006).
- Susan Greenhalgh, Just One Child: Science and Policy in Deng’s China (University of California Press, 2008).
- Aiko Takeuchi-Demirci, Contraceptive Diplomacy: Reproductive Politics and Imperial Ambitions in the United States and Japan (Stanford University Press, 2017).
- Fiona Bloomer, Claire Pierson, and Sylvia Estrada Claudio, Reimagining Global Abortion Politics: A Social Justice Perspective (Policy Press, 2018).
- G. Jáuregui, E. Derbez, C. Freeman, and S. Rodríguez, Será Deseada: A Graphic Novel about Abortion Access in Mexico (2021).
- Las Comadres, Abortos en Plural (Quito, 2020).
- Mytheli Sreenivas, Reproductive Politics and the Making of Modern India (University of Washington Press, 2021).
- Siri Suh, Dying to Count: Post Abortion Care and Global Reproductive Health Politics in Senegal (Rutgers University Press, 2021).
- Tine Gammeltoft, Haunting Images: A Cultural Account of Selective Abortion in Vietnam (Duke University Press, 2014).
- Vera Mackie, Nicola J. Marks, and Sarah Ferber, eds., The Reproductive Industry: Intimate Experiences and Global Processes (Lexington Books, 2019).
- Sarah Ferber, Nicola J. Marks, and Vera Mackie, IVF and Assisted Reproduction: A Global History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
- Tanya Saroj Bakhru, Reproductive Justice and Sexual Rights: Transnational Perspectives (London: Routledge Press, 2019).
- Gail Kligman, The Politics of Duplicity: Controlling Reproduction in Ceausescu’s Romania (Berkley: University of California Press, 1998).
- Matthew Connelly, Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010).
Articles
- Beth Palmer, “‘Lonely, tragic, but legally necessary pilgrimages’: Transnational Abortion Travel in the 1970s,” Canadian Historical Review 92, 4 (2011): 637–64.
- Susan Greenhalgh, “Planned Births, Unplanned Persons: ‘Population’ in the Making of Chinese Modernity,” American Ethnologist 30, no. 2 (May 2003): 196–215.
- Madeleine Belfrage, Eva Didier, and Lucía Vázquez-Quesada, “Voicing Abortion Experiences to Reduce Stigma: Lessons from an Online Storytelling Platform in Mexico,” Women’s Reproductive Health (2021).
- Vera Mackie, “Google Babies and Google Earth: Nation, Transnation and the Australian Reproscape,” in Paul Sharrad and Deb Narayan Bandyopadhay, eds., Transnational Spaces of India and Australia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).
- Corina Dobos, “Disciplining Births: Population Research and Politics in Communist Romania,” The History of the Family 25 (2020): 599-626.
- Corina Dobos, “Whose Children? Pronatalist Incentives and Social Categorization in Socialist Romania,” in Barbra Klich-Kluczewska, Joachim von Puttkamer, and Immo Rebitschek, Biopolitics in Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th Century: Fearing the Nation (London: Routledge, 2022)
- Karl Brown, “For Girls it is an Honor: Women, Work, and Abortion in Communist Hungary, 1948-1956,” Journal of Contemporary History 55 (2019): 602-621.
- Joanna Z. Mishtal, “How the Church Became the State: The Catholic Regime and Reproductive Rights in State Socialist Poland,” in Shana Penn and Jill Massino, Gender Politics and Everyday Life in State Socialist Eastern and Central Europe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Essays
- Camilla Fitzsimons, “The Fight for Repeal: An Activist’s Story”
- Sara Elvins, “A Guide from the Past on Traveling to Get an Abortion,” Made by History, Washington Post, June 27, 2022.
- Ling Ma, “Repositioning the Family and the Household in a Global History of Abortion: The Case of Early-Twentieth-Century China,” Nursing Clio, August 30, 2018.
- Cassia Roth, “ES LEY: Argentina Legalizes Abortion,” Nursing Clio, January 12, 2021.
- Cassia Roth, “A Quiet Inquisition,” Nursing Clio, July 13, 2017.
- Cassia Roth, “The New Rubella: Zika and What it Means for Abortion Rights,” Nursing Clio, February 11, 2016.
- Vera Mackie, Nicola J. Marks, and Sarah Ferber, “Where the Domestic Meets the Global: Writing the History of Assisted Reproduction,” Vida, February 2020.
- Vera Mackie, Sarah Ferber, and Nicola J. Marks, “IVF and Assisted Reproduction: Why a Global History?“, History Workshop Online, April 2021.
Media
- Dig: A History Podcast (audio), “Fascism & Uteruses”
- Dig: A History Podcast (audio), “Communism & Uteruses: How the Soviet Union & the People’s Republic of China Sought to Control Women’s Reproduction”
- Dig: A History Podcast (audio), “Mizuko: The History Behind Vengeful Aborted Fetus Hauntings in 1980s Japan”
- Dig: A History Podcast (audio), “Marie Stopes: Married Sexual Pleasure, Birth Control and Eugenics”
- Dig: A History Podcast (audio), “Family Limitation in the Pre-Modern World”
Modern Perspectives
Articles
- Laura Nixon, “The Right to (Trans)Parent: A Reproductive Justice Approach to Reproductive Rights, Fertility, and Family-Building Issues Facing Transgender People,” William and Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice 20 (2013–14): [online].
Essays
- Lauren MacIvor Thompson, “Abortion: The Archive Doesn’t Lie, but Republicans Do,” Nursing Clio, 2019.
- Karen Weingarten, “Making Sense of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,” Nursing Clio, 2021.
- Britney McKenna, “Amanda Shires Demands More Artists Stand Up for Abortion Rights,” Rolling Stone, June 3, 2022.*
- Amanda Shires, “Why Abortion Rights Matter,” Rolling Stone, October 30, 2020.*
- Tressie McMillan Cottom, “Citizens No More,” New York Times, June 28, 2022.*
- Rebecca Traister, “The Necessity of Hope in a Post-Roe America,” The Cut, June 24, 2022.
- Jia Tolentino, “We’re Not Going Back to the Time Before Roe. We’re Going Somewhere Worse,” New Yorker, June 24, 2022.*
- Eleanor Klibanoff, “Inside a Texas Abortion Clinic after the Fall of Roe,” Texas Tribune, June 25, 2022.
- The Daily (audio), “Inside Four Abortion Clinics on the Day Roe Ended,” New York Times, June 27, 2022.
- Monica Simpson, “To Be Pro-Choice, You Must Have the Privilege of Having Choices,” New York Times, April 11, 2022.
Personal Reflections & Experiences
- Shannon Withycombe, “My Story of 20 Weeks,” Nursing Clio, 2017.
- Carrie Adkins, “An Imperfect Abortion Story,” Nursing Clio, 2020.
- Ginny Engholm, “The Pain of Choice: Late-Term Abortion and Catastrophic Fetal Diagnoses,” Nursing Clio, 2014.
- Karen Weingarten, “The Collective Power of Our Abortion Stories,” Nursing Clio, 2020.
- Linda Black, “My Great-Grandpa Killed My Great-Grandma Giving Her an Abortion on the Kitchen Table,” Huffington Post, May 6, 2022.
- Kate Daloz, “My Grandmother’s Desperate Choice,” New Yorker, May 14, 2017.
- The Abortion Diary Podcast (audio)
- Jia Tolentino, “Interview with a Woman Who Recently Had an Abortion at 32 Weeks,” Jezebel, 2016.
- Jennie Agg, “My Four Miscarriages: Why Is Losing a Pregnancy So Shrouded in Mystery?” Guardian, May 5, 2020.
- Merritt Tierce, “The Abortion I Didn’t Have,” New York Times Magazine, December 2, 2021.
- Anna Starobinets, Look at Him, trans. Katherine E. Young (Three String Books/Slavica, 2020)
- Monica Casper, “Lucky Girl,” Trivia: Voices of Feminism
