Overview

The long history of how restricting access to abortion has been used to curtail women's advancement Attitudes about abortion cycle between long periods of widespread tolerance, to repression, and back again. What accounts for these pendulum swings? From ancient Greece to the modern West, historian of medicine Mary Fissell argues, abortion repression springs up in response to men's anxieties about women's increasing independence. In Pushback, Fissell shows that, across centuries and continents, abortion has always been commonplace, and persecuting women for ending pregnancies has been about controlling their behavior. As Protestantism de-emphasized celibacy, new abortion restrictions policed unmarried women's sex lives. Nineteenth-century men unsettled by first-wave feminism hoped to establish medicine as a male profession, and so advocated for abortion bans to undercut women's new roles as physicians. Fissell presents this history through the hidden stories of women committed to reproductive self-determination: holy women of the early Catholic Church whose ability to end pregnancies was considered miraculous, midwives accused of witchcraft or criminal conspiracy, and everyday women whose pregnancies threatened their livelihoods--and their lives. Pushback is essential reading for understanding the complex history of abortion and making sense of recent crackdowns on reproductive rights.

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9781541604070

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Reviews

""Pushback is the definitive history of abortion in the West. Fissell centers the experience of women as seekers and providers of abortion, demonstrating that, for all of the recent controversy about the practice, abortion has also enjoyed centuries-long periods of acceptance by the powerful. Accessible and absorbing, Pushback gives us hope for the future!"" --Nicholas L. Syrett, author of The Trials of Madame Restell ""Pushback offers a surprising and ultimately optimistic history of how women have managed their reproductive lives for thousands of years in the face of legal and mortal danger. Expertly researched and deeply empathetic, Pushback centers the lives and stories of women and provides a crucial and fascinating context for understanding abortion politics today."" --Leah DeVun, author of The Shape of Sex ""A compelling, compulsively readable, and timely account of the very long history of abortion and abortion restrictions. Fissell's prose sparkles, and the stories of women--married and single, rich and poor, enslaved and free--leap off the pages. Fissell shows us that the need and desire to control one's reproductive life is not a modern phenomenon; women have been controlling their fertility by seeking abortions for thousands of years. Recurrent attempts to ban abortion have never been successful and have always had devastating consequences for women and families. This is essential reading for health-care providers, policy makers, and all who care about the lives and well-being of pregnant and potentially pregnant people."" --Kathleen Crowther, author of Policing Pregnant Bodies ""An important book that tells the history of abortion--and its frequent repression--from antiquity to the modern day."" --Leslie Reagan, author of When Abortion Was a Crime ""In this innovative new history of abortion, Fissell eloquently, brilliantly, and poignantly relates the experiences of individual women to convey the long histories of the complexity, sadness, and determination of women's efforts to control their fertility. Their stories provide a reality check about the universality and persistence of women's needs to end pregnancy, no matter what level of repression or discipline, but it also offers an essential note of hope--waves of repression have always been followed by phases of toleration."" --Julie Hardwick, author of Sex in an Old Regime City ""Vital reading in the aftermath of the reversal of Roe v. Wade, this is a clear and engaging account of the long history of abortion. Mary Fissell tells the story through vivid, engaging, and often alarming accounts of real women who tried to end their pregnancies. Abortion has always been an important aspect of women's healthcare; and, its history shows, it has largely been tolerated. The range of experiences documented by Fissell will inform and educate the wide audience this book deserves to find."" --Helen King, author of Immaculate Forms

Author Information

Mary Fissell is the Mario Molina Professor in the department of the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Fissell has appeared on the BBC and has been cited as an expert in the New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, and Vice. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

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