Knitting needles. Arsenic. Deliberately falling. These are just some of the methods that women used to self-induce abortion in the early twentieth century, when abortion was illegal. This is not simply a subject confined to history books any more. Evidence suggests that self-induced abortion is rising once more, thanks in large part to political efforts… Read more →
Category: Reproductive Justice
The New Rubella: Zika and What it Means for Abortion Rights
Historians, journalists, and public health officials have begun to call Zika the new rubella (German measles). When a pregnant woman contracts the Zika virus, she normally experiences mild symptoms of fever and rash, much like rubella. But also like rubella, the Zika virus can wreak havoc on the developing fetus. Before the rubella vaccine in… Read more →
Abortion in Ireland: The More Things Change…
Last month, a handful of Irish women and men left Dublin on a unique bus tour. For two days, they traveled the country giving information on abortion pills — which are currently illegal in Ireland — to women. Organizer Rita Harrold said of the bus tour and the pro-choice campaign: “You know what? We aren’t… Read more →
Baby Parts for Sale — Old Tropes Revisited
When Robert Lewis Dear Jr. was finally taken into custody after opening fire on a Colorado Springs, Colorado Planned Parenthood on November 28, 2015 — an attack that killed three people — he allegedly told police, “no more baby parts.” While all the facts about Dear’s motives and actions are yet to be released, on… Read more →
Friday Night Rights: Abortion in Small-Town Texas
Two recent events have made me return to my favorite TV show of all time, Friday Night Lights, a well-written and riveting drama about football and small-town life in West Texas. First, I recently saw Connie Britton, aka Tami Taylor outside a restaurant in Beachwood Canyon, Los Angeles. I got so excited I stalled my… Read more →
Sweeping Changes, Deadly Setbacks: Abortion Policy in 20th-Century Latin America
This post is dedicated to Clayton Fagner Alves Dias, soldado da PM N. 96008. On February 20, 2015, a nineteen-year-old young woman was arrested outside the city of São Paulo, Brazil for an alleged illegal abortion. The girl had gone to a private hospital to seek medical care. The physician who treated her suspected an… Read more →
Archiving Abortion: Sharing One Story At A Time
“I feel like nobody should have to experience anything in life without sharing it. I feel like through our experiences it teaches us a lesson and I feel like we owe it to the world to share it.” That was Nikki’s response when I asked her the question I ask everyone who shares their story with… Read more →
Agency and Abortion in Brazil
Two women’s deaths resulting from clandestine abortions recently shocked the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In August 2014, 27-year-old Jandira dos Santos Cruz died during an illegal abortion procedure. Her body was later found burned and dismembered to avoid identification. The following month in the nearby city of Niterói, 32-year-old Elizangela Barbosa died from… Read more →
The Burdens of Conscience: Thoughts on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby
In the late 1960s, two men refused to fulfill their military service obligations. One was a humanist and the other a Catholic, and both viewed Vietnam as an unjust war. However, they admitted they did not view all wars as unconscionable. This presented a problem because the Selective Service required men to certify that they… Read more →
If the IUD is an Abortifacient, Then So Is Chemotherapy and Lunch Meat
When I criticized Hobby Lobby for its attempts to evade the Obamacare contraceptive mandate, a friend of mine thoughtfully replied, “Lara, I don’t think the Hobby Lobby case has anything to do with the daily birth control pill — it is only dealing with not wanting to cover drugs and medical devices that actually “end”… Read more →