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abortion

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    5/5/2022

    The Antiabortion Movement's Victory in the War of Language

    by Jennifer L. Holland

    The antiabortion movement was able to overcome American skepticism of enshrining religious views into law and demands by women for full citizenship by turning the language of rights to apply to fetuses. It remains to be seen if this language will lead to a national ban on abortion in the name of fetal personhood. 

  • SOURCE: Activist History Review
    5/4/2022

    For Deliverance: A Letter on Roe

    by Riley Clare Valentine

    A Catholic scholar and activist concludes "it is an act of love, of caritas, to reject the unjust undoing of Roe and to continue to help our neighbors who need access to abortions."

  • SOURCE: NPR
    5/4/2022

    The Anti-Abortion Movement's Pre-Roe Roots

    The professionalization of medicine in the 19th century empowered male doctors to usurp the personal judgment of pregnant women about when "quickening" of a fetus had taken place, and set in motion growing efforts to restrict abortion. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    5/3/2022

    Is Alito's Plan to Repeal the 20th Century?

    Alito's invocation of Plessy v. Ferguson as a reason to discard precedent is galling because his opinion would destroy the kind of protection under law that Homer Plessy actually sought. 

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    5/5/2022

    Why the End of Roe Isn't Likely to Energize the Democrats

    by Natalie Shure

    Until the Democratic Party and its pro-choice supporters decide to take action to fix the fact that abortion restrictions are already harming poor and working-class women, they are unlikely to win elections based on their nominal support for abortion rights. 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    5/3/2022

    What Will Post-Roe Campuses Be Like?

    Student life and mental health, gender equity, medical school curricula, and faculty recruitment are just some of the areas of change likely if some states are able to ban abortion. 

  • SOURCE: The Constitutionalist
    3/3/2022

    Judicial Leaks, 19th Century Style

    by Mark A. Graber

    When a Justice leaked a draft of the Dred Scott decision to James Buchanan, hoping the president-elect would cajole a fellow Pennsylvanian on the court to join the opinion as a non-southern vote, it was a non-story. Today the focus should be squarely on the substance of Samuel Alito's ruling.

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    5/3/2022

    The Reconstruction Amendments and the Basis of American Abortion Rights

    by Peggy Cooper Davis

    When the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were debated, concerns about the protection of both public rights of citizenship and private, intimate rights of individuals were front and center. There is, notwithstanding Samuel Alito's opinion, a long tradition of constitutional respect for privacy.

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    5/3/2022

    Originalists Seriously Misconstrue the Constitution's Silences on Abortion

    by Laura Briggs

    Samuel Alito would argue that the Constitution's silence on abortion means the founders recognized no right to it. But it's more likely they understood abortion to be a common act that didn't intersect with the business of the government. 

  • SOURCE: Dissent
    4/27/2022

    The Fatal Siloing of Abortion Advocacy

    by Meaghan Winter

    It was a strategic mistake for abortion rights advocates to emphasize the right to individual choice instead of the vast issues of economic justice, workforce quality, educational equity and personal safety that are impacted by whether women can control their own reproduction. 

  • SOURCE: Atlas Obscura
    4/22/2022

    The 19th Century Woman's Secret Guides to Birth Control

    Women have always tried to share information enabling them to control their reproductive health, and others have always tried to stop them. Secrecy, coded language and misdirection are historical puzzles to untangle, say Andrea Tone, Naomi Rendina, Lauren Thompson and Donna Drucker. 

  • SOURCE: CNN
    4/19/2022

    The Republicans are Accelerating the War on Abortion Rights

    Although two thirds of Americans favor some abortion rights, legal historian Mary Ziegler says the new composition of the Supreme Court means state legislatures will boldly pursue what they really want: totally outlawing abortion. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    3/25/2022

    Antiabortion Movement Gunning for Contraceptive Rights, Too

    by Anya Jabour

    A century ago, sex researcher Katharine Bement Davis was silenced because she fought to redefine women's sexuality and contraceptive use as normal and fight for its decriminalization. The right today wants to undo her legacy through the courts.

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    3/24/2022

    The Religious History of Caesarean Surgery and the Abortion Debate

    by Elizabeth O'Brien

    In the 18th century, priests in Spanish colonies in the Americas were required to perform Caesaran operations on pregnant women whose own lives were beyond saving in order to baptize their fetuses, helping to develop the Catholic doctrine that the unborn already had souls.