Cross Cultural Solidarity

History; in the Service of Solidarity

The History of Abortion in the U.S.

Image from JSTOR Daily.

Spencer Beswick: The model for mobilizing to protect abortion rights beyond voting: ‘We’re pro-choice and we riot!’ How anarchists reframed the fight for abortion.

Sherry Boschert: Even before the leaked opinion, SCOTUS gutted key civil rights remedies: The court eviscerated remedies related to Title IX.

Laura Briggs: Originalists are misreading the Constitution’s silence on abortion: The originalist case for lifting abortion restrictions.

Patricia Cline Cohen: The Dobbs decision looks to history to rescind Roe: But the history it relies on is not correct.

Peggy Cooper Davis: The Reconstruction amendments matter when considering abortion rights: The cruelty of enslavers when it came to reproduction and families shaped the 13th and 14th amendments.

Joy Ellison: Lessons from an underground women’s abortion service in the 1970s: A pathway for keeping safe abortions accessible in a post-Roe world.

Sarah Elvins: A guide from the past on traveling to get an abortion: As in the era before Roe, Canada may be a good abortion destination for Americans.

Gillian Frank & Neil J. Young: What everyone gets wrong about evangelicals and abortion: Evangelicals started speaking out against legal abortion long before the late 1970s.

Lara Freidenfelds: When the Constitution was drafted, abortion was a choice left to women: The responsibility for a pregnancy belonged to women — including ending it.

Michele Goodwin: No, Justice Alito, Reproductive Justice Is in the Constitution.

Jennifer L. Holland: The antiabortion movement’s powerful use of language paid off: Nearing an antiabortion victory five decades in the making.

Anya Jabour: Abortion and birth control restrictions curtail women’s citizenship: Reproductive rights are central to women’s citizenship — and they always have been.

Marc C. Johnson & Robert P. Saldin: Republicans could rue the Supreme Court ending abortion rights: History shows that when abortion rights have seemed most at risk, voters revolt — even in conservative states.

Felicia Kornbluh:

Rachel Kranson: History shows that the First Amendment should protect abortion: Antiabortion activists have long sought to prevent this.

Samira K. Mehta & Lauren MacIvor Thompson: The Supreme Court’s abortion decision is based on a myth. Here’s why. How a history rooted in White Christian nationalism drove the court’s reasoning, despite being false.

Katherine Parkin: In 1970, a woman went to jail for an abortion. Now, it could happen again. What we can learn from Shirley Wheeler’s experience now that Roe is gone.

Sarah Pripas: Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles: A Brief History of Self-Induced Abortion.

Naomi Rendina: With Roe gone, women could lose more than abortion rights: The freedom to choose contraception and childbirth methods may also be lost.

David Sehat: What the end of Roe signals about the rise of Christian power: Conservative Christians have waged a war against the U.S. being a secular, civic republic.

Rachel Shelden: What Dred Scott teaches us about the draft abortion ruling: In the 19th century, the Supreme Court wasn’t the last word on the Constitution.

Reva Siegel: The Trump court limited women’s rights using 19th-century standards: Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. gave a highly selective account of the nation’s “history and traditions” to achieve a longstanding conservative political goal.

Kathryn Kish Sklar: A Thurgood Marshall opinion offers another path to secure legal abortion: After Dobbs, feminist lawyers need new and expanded arguments.

Jennifer Szalai: Abortion Politics, Money and the Reshaping of the G.O.P.

Lauren MacIvor Thompson: Women Have Always Had Abortions.

Daniel K. Williams: The parties flipped on abortion, reshaping activism and our politics: How the abortion debate got more extreme.

Mary Ziegler: See Ziegler’s collected articles here.