Histories of Abortion in the United States

Over the past decade, lawmakers in several states have introduced bills that would prohibit abortions as early as the sixth week of pregnancy, contrary to the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade (1973). Rarely have such bills succeeded, until this year. As of mid-May, eight state legislatures had passed so-called “heartbeat bills” or other pieces of legislation intended to curtail abortion rights. The most restrictive of these laws, signed by Alabama governor Kay Ivey, would prohibit abortion in nearly all cases. The Alabama statute will not take effect until November  2019. In the meantime, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America have announced their intention to challenge these laws in court.

The Journal of American History has compiled the following index for readers who would like to learn more about the history of abortion, reproductive rights, and Roe v. Wade. The index consists of more than two dozen book and film reviews printed in the JAH. Collectively, these reviews offer a sweeping survey of the field as it has evolved over the last four decades.

The titles listed below will be freely available through August 2019.

Author	Title	Reviewer	Year of Book Publication
Karissa Haugeberg	Women against Abortion: Inside the Largest Moral Reform Movement of the Twentieth Century	Catherine E. Rymph	2017
Lisa Riggin	San Francisco’s Queen of Vice: The Strange Career of Abortionist Inez Brown Burns	Rebecca Kluchin	2017
Daniel K. Williams	Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade	Keith Cassidy	2016
Johanna Schoen	Abortion after Roe	Rebecca M. Kluchin	2015
Jennifer Nelson	More Than Medicine: A History of the Feminist Women’s Health Movement	Sharra Vostral	2015
Karen Weingarten	Abortion in the American Imagination: Before Life and Choice, 1880–1940	Simone Caron	2014
Justin Buckley Dyer	Slavery, Abortion, and the Politics of Constitutional Meaning	Rebecca E. Zietlow	2013
Sara Dubow	Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America	Leslie J. Reagan	2011
Jamie Q. Tallman	The Notorious Dr. Flippin: Abortion and Consequence in the Early Twentieth Century	Simone Caron	2011
Leslie J. Reagan	Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America	Margaret Marsh	2010
Simone Caron	Who Chooses? American Reproductive History since 1830	Margaret Marsh	2008
Burns Gene	The Moral Veto: Framing Contraception, Abortion, and Cultural Pluralism in the United States	Keith Cassidy	2006
Johanna Schoen	Choice & Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare	Jennifer Nelson	2005
Rickie Solinger	Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America	Janet Golden	2005
William Saletan	Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War	Leslie J. Reagan	2003
Jennifer Nelson	Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement	Amy Kesselman	2003
Nathan Stormer	Articulating Life’s Memory: U.S. Medical Rhetoric about Abortion in the Nineteenth Century	Keith Cassidy	2002
Rickie Solinger	Beggars and Choosers: How the Politics of Choice Shapes Adoption, Abortion, and Welfare in the United States	Janet Farrell Brodie	2001
Leslie J. Reagan	When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867–1975	David J. Garrow	1997
Dorothy Fadiman, Daniel Meyers, and Beth Seltzer, producers	From Danger to Dignity: The Fight for Safe Abortion	Amy Kesselman	1996
Janet Farrell Brodie	Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth–Century America	Leslie J. Reagan	1994
F.L. Morton	Pro-Choice vs. Pro-Life: Abortion and the Courts in Canada	Suzanne Staggenborg	1994
Eva R. Rubin, editor	The Abortion Controversy: A Documentary History	Sally G. McMillen	1994
David J. Garrow	Liberty and Sexuality. The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade	Donald T. Critchlow	1994
Suzanne Staggenborg	The Pro-Choice Movement: Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict	Alice Echols	1991
James C. Mohr	Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy, 1800–1900	James Harvey Young	1978

 

---

For more on the history of abortion in the United States, check out this essay by historian Jennifer L. Holland. For other insights into the contents of the Journal of American History, click here.