We spent all of winter in the NICU. When I was 25 weeks pregnant, I went into preterm labor and gave birth to my daughter. She weighed just one pound 13 ounces and was barely one foot long. Having a micropreemie in the NICU feels like an alternate reality. Time stops working the way one… Read more →
Tag: reproductive justice
Making Sense of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
On December 1, 2021, the Supreme Court heard Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that threatens to unravel Roe v. Wade and legal abortion. I was teaching during the hearing, so – struggling to understand what was happening – I read the transcript the next day. And then I read it again because… Read more →
“ES LEY”: Argentina Legalizes Abortion
The flashing words “ES LEY” (It’s law!) marked the occasion: on December 30, 2020, Argentina’s Senate voted 38-29,with one abstention, to legalize abortion for any reason (“on demand”) in the first fourteen weeks of pregnancy. What’s more, public hospitals will provide the service free of charge. Argentina now joins its neighbor Uruguay, which legalized abortion… Read more →
Artificial Wombs and Decriminalizing Abortion
After the announcement of the successful animal trials of a partial artificial womb in 2017, an image of a tiny pink lamb fetus floating in a transparent bag briefly became ubiquitous.1 Mortality and health complications for premature babies born before 28 weeks remain high, in large part because their fragile lungs have not yet developed… Read more →
The Eugenicists on Abortion
Clarence Thomas recently issued a twenty-page opinion on the Supreme Court decision Box v. Planned Parenthood that went viral because he drew on Margaret Sanger, founder of the first birth control clinic in the U.S., and her connection to eugenics in order to argue that abortion is and historically has been a tool to control… Read more →
The Anti-Abortion Politics of White Women
Last month, the Alabama State Senate passed a piece of legislation effectively banning abortion in the state of Alabama. House Bill 314, which prohibits abortion even in cases of rape and incest, comes on the heels of Georgia House Bill 481, which prohibits abortions in cases where a fetal heartbeat is detectable—six weeks into a… Read more →
This is Not a Culture of Life, This is a Culture of Un-Death
Last week at a Vatican conference on abortion, Pope Francis “argued that children who were not expected to live long after birth deserved to be treated in the womb ‘with extraordinary pharmacological, surgical and other interventions.’” He intimated that parents who did not use extraordinary measures were not caring for their children, saying that “Taking… Read more →
At Your Service: The Role of the Historian in Contemporary Reproductive Rights Debates
A new wave of frenetic reproductive puritanism appears to be sweeping the globe. From Trump’s global gag, which has widely been heralded as a “devastating blow for women’s rights,” to the rollback of access to legal abortion in countries such as Chile, reproductive politics are defining administrative agendas. But in lamenting the state of current… Read more →
Repositioning the Family and the Household in a Global History of Abortion: The Case of Early-Twentieth-Century China
In May, NC editor Cassia Roth and Diana Paton organized the Intimate Politics: Fertility Control in a Global Historical Perspective conference at the University of Edinburgh. The conference explored reproduction, gender, and race from the perspective of multiple time periods, geographic locations, actors, and methods. Scholars from Europe, the United States, South Africa, Turkey, and… Read more →
Feminist Science Fiction? The Power, Red Clocks, and The Salt Line
When Laura put out the call to the Nursing Clio team for Beach Reads essays, I didn’t think I’d have anything this summer. Not that I wasn’t reading; I always have a long summer reading list, including a lot of trash, science fiction, and new books from my favorite authors. I just didn’t think there… Read more →