Overview

As we approach the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, it's crucial to look back to the time when abortion was illegal. Leslie Reagan traces the practice and policing of abortion, which although illegal was nonetheless widely available, but always with threats for both doctor and patient. In a time when many young women don't even know that there was a period when abortion was a crime, this work offers chilling and vital lessons of importance to everyone. The linking of the words ""abortion"" and ""crime"" emphasizes the difficult and painful history that is the focus of Leslie J. Reagan's important book. Her study is the first to examine the entire period during which abortion was illegal in the United States, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and ending with Roe v. Wade in 1973. Although illegal, millions of abortions were provided during these years to women of every class, race, and marital status. The experiences and perspectives of these women, as well as their physicians and midwives, are movingly portrayed here. Reagan traces the practice and policing of abortion. While abortions have been typically portrayed as grim ""back alley"" operations, she finds that abortion providers often practiced openly and safely. Moreover, numerous physicians performed abortions, despite prohibitions by the state and the American Medical Association. Women often found cooperative practioners, but prosecution, public humiliation, loss of privacy, and inferior medical care were a constant threat. Reagan's analysis of previously untapped sources, including inquest records and trial transcripts, shows the fragility of patient rights and raises provocative questions about the relationship between medicine and law. With the right to abortion again under attack in the United States, this book offers vital lessons for every American concerned with health care, civil liberties, and personal and sexual freedom.

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9780520216570

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Reviews

This well-written book is a stellar, complex, and accessible volume that will stand as the definitive history for years to come. --Rickie Solinger, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

A first-rate exposition of the changing cultural and legal climate regarding abortion in America. -- Thomas Szasz, * The Washington Post * A brilliant account of the era before the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision. . . .A model of social history, supported by a spectacular wealth of documentary evidence. . . .This well-written book is a stellar, complex, and accessible volume that will stand as the definitive history for years to come. -- Rickie Solinger, * The San Francisco Chronicle * The first to span the whole period of criminalization and to cover the subject in such depth. . . .Important and original, vigorously written. . . .Rich, thought-provoking, and revelatory. -- Katha Pollitt, * The Atlantic * Essential. -- Frank Rich, * New York Times * For those who take abortion for granted, Reagan's work is an eye-opener. * Publishers Weekly * Reagan brings a new perspective to the history of illegal abortion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. -- Jane Hodgson, * Journal of the American Medical Association *

Reagan brings a new perspective to the history of illegal abortion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. -- Jane Hodgson, * Journal of the American Medical Association * For those who take abortion for granted, Reagan's work is an eye-opener. * Publishers Weekly * Essential. -- Frank Rich, * New York Times * The first to span the whole period of criminalization and to cover the subject in such depth. . . .Important and original, vigorously written. . . .Rich, thought-provoking, and revelatory. -- Katha Pollitt, * The Atlantic * A brilliant account of the era before the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision. . . .A model of social history, supported by a spectacular wealth of documentary evidence. . . .This well-written book is a stellar, complex, and accessible volume that will stand as the definitive history for years to come. -- Rickie Solinger, * The San Francisco Chronicle * A first-rate exposition of the changing cultural and legal climate regarding abortion in America. -- Thomas Szasz, * The Washington Post *

""The first to span the whole period of criminalization and to cover the subject in such depth. . . .Important and original, vigorously written. . . .Rich, thought-provoking, and revelatory."" -- Katha Pollitt, * The Atlantic * ""A brilliant account of the era before the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision. . . .A model of social history, supported by a spectacular wealth of documentary evidence. . . .This well-written book is a stellar, complex, and accessible volume that will stand as the definitive history for years to come."" -- Rickie Solinger, * The San Francisco Chronicle * ""Essential."" -- Frank Rich, * New York Times * ""A first-rate exposition of the changing cultural and legal climate regarding abortion in America."" -- Thomas Szasz, * The Washington Post * ""Reagan brings a new perspective to the history of illegal abortion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."" -- Jane Hodgson, * Journal of the American Medical Association * ""For those who take abortion for granted, Reagan's work is an eye-opener."" * Publishers Weekly *

A solidly grounded, sophisticated history of illegal abortion in the US. Reagan, a historian specializing in medicine and women's studies (Univ. of Illinois), persuasively argues that, even during periods when legal and medical systems and religious beliefs have proscribed abortion, it has been an important, and often accepted, part of women's lives. She uses a range of materials, including government documents and the popular press, to prove her case but focuses her research primarily on legal and medical records. Reagan combines her analysis of nationwide trends in abortion practice with a study focusing on Chicago. By 1880, abortion was illegal throughout the US. Nonetheless, through 1940 it was a common medical practice that enjoyed widespread social acceptance. In the '40s the states, in cooperation with the medical establishment, began to enforce abortion laws more vigilantly. It was during this period that most of the pre-Roe back alley abortions took place. The movement to legalize abortion began in the mid-1950s, first on the initiative of a few doctors, later gaining momentum and ideological fervor with the rise of the Second Wave of feminism in the late 1960s. Reagan goes beyond the genesis of written laws, focusing on women's attitudes toward abortion and their concrete experiences of it. She points out that abortion has often been seen as a result of women's victimization (a callous man uses a woman for his own sexual pleasure and then abandons her). Reagan acknowledges that this happens but points out that, across class lines and time periods, many women have actively wanted to separate sex from procreation. She also skillfully connects abortion to larger events and tendencies in history; the Depression, for example, greatly increased the economic need for abortion. Of enduring interest to anyone concerned with the history of women's rights, sexual mores, and the relationship of law and policy to ordinary lives. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Leslie J. Reagan is Professor of History, with affiliations in gender and women's studies, law, media and cinema studies, and medicine, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America (UC Press) and coeditor of Medicine's Moving Pictures: Medicine, Health, and Bodies in American Film and Television.

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