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abortion and the politics of motherhood: Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood Kristin Luker, 1984 Examines the issues, people, and beliefs on both sides of the abortion conflict. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: The New States of Abortion Politics Joshua C. Wilson, 2016-06-08 The 2014 Supreme Court ruling on McCullen v. Coakley striking down a Massachusetts law regulating anti-abortion activism marked the reengagement of the Supreme Court in abortion politics. A throwback to the days of clinic-front protests, the decision seemed a means to reinvigorate the old street politics of abortion. The Court's ruling also highlights the success of a decades' long effort by anti-abortion activists to transform the very politics of abortion. The New States of Abortion Politics, written by leading scholar Joshua C. Wilson, tells the story of this movement, from streets to legislative halls to courtrooms. With the end of clinic-front activism, lawyers and politicians took on the fight. Anti-abortion activists moved away from a doomed frontal assault on Roe v. Wade and adopted an incremental strategy—putting anti-abortion causes on the offensive in friendly state forums and placing reproductive rights advocates on the defense in the courts. The Supreme Court ruling on Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt in 2016 makes the stakes for abortion politics higher than ever. This book elucidates how—and why. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Dubious Conceptions Kristin Luker, 1996 Traces the way popular attitudes came to demonize young mothers and examines the profound social and economic changes that have influenced debate on the issue, especially since the 1970s. --From publisher description. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Policing the Womb Michele Goodwin, 2020-03-12 This book tells the real-life horror story of states' abusing laws and infringing on rights to police women and their pregnancies. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: The Politics of Motherhood Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney, 2009-12-06 With the 2006 election of Michelle Bachelet as the first female president and women claiming fifty percent of her cabinet seats, the political influence of Chilean women has taken a major step forward. Despite a seemingly liberal political climate, Chile has a murky history on women's rights, and progress has been slow, tenuous, and in many cases, non-existent. Chronicling an era of unprecedented modernization and political transformation, Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney examines the negotiations over women's rights and the politics of gender in Chile throughout the twentieth century. Centering her study on motherhood, Pieper Mooney explores dramatic changes in health policy, population paradigms, and understandings of human rights, and reveals that motherhood is hardly a private matter defined only by individual women or couples. Instead, it is intimately tied to public policies and political competitions on nation-state and international levels. The increased legitimacy of women's demands for rights, both locally and globally, has led to some improvements in gender equity. Yet feminists in contemporary Chile continue to face strong opposition from neoconservatism in the Catholic Church and a mixture of public apathy and legal wrangling over reproductive rights and health. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Happy Abortions Erica Millar, 2017-12-15 ‘A provocative and important book that every pro-choice advocate should read.’ Sinéad Kennedy, Coalition to Repeal the 8th Amendment When it comes to abortion, today’s liberal climate has produced a common sense that is both pro-choice and anti-abortion. The public are fed an unchanging version of what the abortion choice entails and how women experience it. While it would prove highly unpopular to insist that all pregnant women should carry their pregnancy to term, the idea that abortion could or should be a happy experience for women is virtually unspeakable. In this careful and intelligent work, Erica Millar shows how the emotions of abortion are constructed in sharp contrast to the emotional position occupied by motherhood – the unassailable placeholder for women’s happiness. Through an exposition of the cultural and political forces that continue to influence the decisions women make about their pregnancies – forces that are synonymous with the rhetoric of choice – Millar argues for a radical reinterpretation of women’s freedom. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Abortion, Motherhood, and Mental Health Ellie Lee, Whatever reproductive choices women make--whether they opt to end a pregnancy through abortion or continue to term and give birth--they are considered to be at risk of suffering serious mental health problems. According to opponents of abortion in the United States, potential injury to women is a major reason why people should consider abortion a problem. On the other hand, becoming a mother can also be considered a big risk. This fine, well-balanced book is about how people represent the results of reproductive choices. It examines how and why pregnancy and its various outcomes have come to be discussed this way. The author's interest in the medicalization of reproduction--its representation as a mental health problem--first arose in relation to abortion. There is a very clear contrast between the construction of women who have abortions, implied by moralized argument against abortion, and the construction that results when the case against abortion focuses on its effects on women's mental health. Lee argues that claims that connect abortion with mental illness have been limited in their influence, but this is not to suggest that they have not become a focus for discussion and have had no impact. The limits to such claims about abortion do not, by any means, suggest limits to the process of the medicalization of pregnancy more broadly, that is, a process of demedicalization. The final theme of Ellie Lee's book is the selective medicalization of reproduction. Centering on the claim that abortion can create a post abortion syndrome, the author examines the medicalization of the abortion problem on both sides of the Atlantic. Lee points to contrasts in legal and medical dimensions of the abortion issue that make for some important differences, but argues that in both the United States and Great Britain, the post-abortion-syndrome claim constitutes an example of the limits to medicalization and the return to the theme of motherhood as a psychological ordeal. Lee makes the case for looking to the social dimensions of mental health problems to account for and understand debates about what makes women ill. Ellie Lee is research fellow in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Southampton, Highfield, United Kingdom. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Her Body, Our Laws Michelle Oberman, 2018-01-16 With stories from the front lines, a legal scholar journeys through distinct legal climates to understand precisely why and how the war over abortion is being fought. Drawing on her years of research in El Salvador—one of the few countries to ban abortion without exception—legal scholar Michelle Oberman explores what happens when abortion is a crime. Oberman reveals the practical challenges raised by a thriving black market in abortion drugs, as well as the legal challenges to law enforcement. She describes a system in which doctors and lawyers collaborate in order to identify and prosecute those suspected of abortion-related crimes, and the troubling results of such collaboration: mistaken diagnoses, selective enforcement, and wrongful convictions. Equipped with this understanding, Oberman turns her attention to the United States, where the battle over abortion is fought almost exclusively in legislatures and courtrooms. Beginning in Oklahoma, one of the most pro-life states, and through interviews with current and former legislators and activists, she shows how Americans voice their moral opposition to abortion by supporting laws that would restrict it. In this America, the law is more a symbol than a plan. Oberman challenges this vision of the law by considering the practical impact of legislation and policies governing both motherhood and abortion. Using stories gathered from crisis pregnancy centers and abortion clinics, she unmasks the ways in which the law already shapes women’s responses to unplanned pregnancy, generating incentives or penalties, nudging pregnant women in one direction or another. In an era in which every election cycle features a pitched battle over abortion’s legality, Oberman uses her research to expose the limited ways in which making abortion a crime matters. Her insight into the practical consequences that will ensue if states are permitted to criminalize abortion calls attention to the naïve and misguided nature of contemporary struggles over abortion’s legality. A fresh look at the battle over abortion law, Her Body, Our Laws is an invitation to those on all sides of the issue to move beyond the incomplete discourse about legality by understanding how the law actually matters. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Mother-Love and Abortion Robert D. Goldstein, 2021-01-08 This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Designing Motherhood Michelle Millar Fisher, Amber Winick, 2021-09-14 More than eighty designs--iconic, archaic, quotidian, and taboo--that have defined the arc of human reproduction. While birth often brings great joy, making babies is a knotty enterprise. The designed objects that surround us when it comes to menstruation, birth control, conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood vary as oddly, messily, and dramatically as the stereotypes suggest. This smart, image-rich, fashion-forward, and design-driven book explores more than eighty designs--iconic, conceptual, archaic, titillating, emotionally charged, or just plain strange--that have defined the relationships between people and babies during the past century. Each object tells a story. In striking images and engaging text, Designing Motherhood unfolds the compelling design histories and real-world uses of the objects that shape our reproductive experiences. The authors investigate the baby carrier, from the Snugli to BabyBjörn, and the (re)discovery of the varied traditions of baby wearing; the tie-waist skirt, famously worn by a pregnant Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy, and essential for camouflaging and slowly normalizing a public pregnancy; the home pregnancy kit, and its threat to the authority of male gynecologists; and more. Memorable images--including historical ads, found photos, and drawings--illustrate the crucial role design and material culture plays throughout the arc of human reproduction. The book features a prologue by Erica Chidi and a foreword by Alexandra Lange. Contributors Luz Argueta-Vogel, Zara Arshad, Nefertiti Austin, Juliana Rowen Barton, Lindsey Beal, Thomas Beatie, Caitlin Beach, Maricela Becerra, Joan E. Biren, Megan Brandow-Faller, Khiara M. Bridges, Heather DeWolf Bowser, Sophie Cavoulacos, Meegan Daigler, Anna Dhody, Christine Dodson, Henrike Dreier, Adam Dubrowski, Michelle Millar Fisher, Claire Dion Fletcher, Tekara Gainey, Lucy Gallun, Angela Garbes, Judy S. Gelles, Shoshana Batya Greenwald, Robert D. Hicks, Porsche Holland, Andrea Homer-Macdonald, Alexis Hope, Malika Kashyap, Karen Kleiman, Natalie Lira, Devorah L Marrus, Jessica Martucci, Sascha Mayer, Betsy Joslyn Mitchell, Ginger Mitchell, Mark Mitchell, Aidan O’Connor, Lauren Downing Peters, Nicole Pihema, Alice Rawsthorn, Helen Barchilon Redman, Airyka Rockefeller, Julie Rodelli, Raphaela Rosella, Loretta J. Ross, Ofelia Pérez Ruiz, Hannah Ryan, Karin Satrom, Tae Smith, Orkan Telhan, Stephanie Tillman, Sandra Oyarzo Torres, Malika Verma, Erin Weisbart, Deb Willis, Carmen Winant, Brendan Winick, Flaura Koplin Winston |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood Kristin Luker, 1985-08-04 In this important study of the abortion controversy in the United States, Kristin Luker examines the issues, people, and beliefs on both sides of the abortion conflict. She draws data from twenty years of public documents and newspaper accounts, as well as over two hundred interviews with both pro-life and pro-choice activists. She argues that moral positions on abortion are intimately tied to views on sexual behavior, the care of children, family life, technology, and the importance of the individual. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Contested Lives Faye D. Ginsburg, 1998-09-01 Based on the struggle over a Fargo, North Dakota, abortion clinic, Contested Lives explores one of the central social conflicts of our time. Both wide-ranging and rich in detail, it speaks not simply to the abortion issue but also to the critical role of women's political activism. A new introduction addresses the events of the last decade, which saw the emergence of Operation Rescue and a shift toward more violent, even deadly, forms of anti-abortion protest. Responses to this trend included government legislation, a decline in clinics and doctors offering abortion services, and also the formation of Common Ground, an alliance bringing together activists from both sides to address shared concerns. Ginsburg shows that what may have seemed an ephemeral artifact of Midwestern feminism of the 1980s actually foreshadowed unprecedented possibilities for reconciliation in one of the most entrenched conflicts of our times. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Abortion in Asia Andrea M. Whittaker, 2010 Based on extensive original field research, this provocative collection presents case studies from Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia and India. It includes an insight into the conditions and hard choices faced by women and the circumstances surrounding unplanned pregnancies. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Surrogate Motherhood and the Politics of Reproduction Susan Markens, 2007-09-04 Susan Markens takes on one of the hottest issues on the fertility front—surrogate motherhood—in a book that illuminates the culture wars that have erupted over new reproductive technologies in the United States. In an innovative analysis of legislative responses to surrogacy in the bellwether states of New York and California, Markens explores how discourses about gender, family, race, genetics, rights, and choice have shaped policies aimed at this issue. She examines the views of key players, including legislators, women's organizations, religious groups, the media, and others. In a study that finds surprising ideological agreement among those with opposing views of surrogate motherhood, Markens challenges common assumptions about our responses to reproductive technologies and at the same time offers a fascinating picture of how reproductive politics shape social policy. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Abortion Regret J. Shoshanna Ehrlich, Alesha E. Doan, 2019-02-15 An indispensable resource for students, scholars, and activists concerned about current attacks on abortion rights, this book offers an unmatched account of the emergence, consolidation, and consequences of the antiabortion movement's paternalistic abortion regret narrative. Abortion Regret explores the emergence and consolidation of the antiabortion movement's paternalistic efforts to protect women from abortion regret. It begins by examining the 19th-century physician's campaign to criminalize abortion and traces the contours of the women-protective abortion regret narrative through to the 21st century. Based on interviews, textual analysis of primary sources, and a content analysis of state antiabortion policy from 2010-2015, the authors argue that the contemporary rise of the abortion regret narrative has armed the antiabortion movement with a unifying and compelling strategy to oppose abortion through a woman-centered approach. In addition to covering the historical origins of our nation's criminal abortion laws, the book covers topics that include the origins and growth of crisis pregnancy centers, including recent efforts provide perinatal hospice services; an analysis of leading Supreme Court decisions on abortion; the emergence of the pro-woman/pro-life antiabortion platform, including its deeply religious roots; the infiltration of this position into the political and legal spheres in the guise of a secular rationale for limiting access to abortion; and an evidence-based rejoinder to the position that abortion harms women. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Scarlet A Katie Watson, 2018-01-02 Winner of the NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language Although Roe v. Wade identified abortion as a constitutional right in1973, it still bears stigma--a proverbial scarlet A. Millions of Americans have participated in or benefited from an abortion, but few want to reveal that they have done so. Approximately one in five pregnancies in the US ends in abortion. Why is something so common, which has been legal so long, still a source of shame and secrecy? Why is it so regularly debated by politicians, and so seldom divulged from friend to friend? This book explores the personal stigma that prevents many from sharing their abortion experiences with friends and family in private conversation, and the structural stigma that keeps it that way. In public discussion, both proponents and opponents of abortion's legality tend to focus on extraordinary cases. This tendency keeps the national debate polarized and contentious, and keeps our focus on the cases that occur the least. Professor Katie Watson focuses instead on the cases that happen the most, which she calls ordinary abortion. Scarlet A gives the reflective reader a more accurate impression of what the majority of American abortion practice really looks like. It explains how our silence around private experience has distorted public opinion, and how including both ordinary abortion and abortion ethics could make our public exchanges more fruitful. In Scarlet A, Watson wisely and respectfully navigates one of the most divisive topics in contemporary life. This book explains the law of abortion, challenges the toxic politics that make it a public football and private secret, offers tools for more productive private exchanges, and leads the way to a more robust public discussion of abortion ethics. Scarlet A combines storytelling and statistics to bring the story of ordinary abortion out of the shadows, painting a rich, rarely seen picture of how patients and doctors currently think and act, and ultimately inviting readers to tell their own stories and draw their own conclusions. The paperback edition includes a new preface by the author addressing new cultural developments in abortion discourse and new legal threats to reproductive rights, and updated statistics throughout. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Transcending Borders Shannon Stettner, Katrina Ackerman, Kristin Burnett, Travis Hay, 2017-03-27 This multidisciplinary volume investigates different abortion and reproductive practices across time, space, geography, national boundaries, and cultures. The authors specialize in the reproductive politics of Australia, Bolivia, Cameroon, France, ‘German East Africa,’ Ireland, Japan, Sweden, South Africa, the United States, and Zanzibar, with historical focuses on the pre-modern era, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as the present day. This timely work complicates the many histories and ongoing politics of abortion by exploring the conditions in which women have been forced to make these life-altering decisions. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Pregnancy, Motherhood, and Choice in Twentieth-Century Arizona Mary S. Melcher, 2012-09-20 Mary Melcher's Pregnancy, Motherhood, and Choice in Twentieth-Century Arizona provides a deep and diverse history of the dramatic changes in childbirth, birth control, infant mortality, and abortion over the course of the last century. Using oral histories, memoirs, newspaper accounts, government documents, letters, photos, and biographical collections, this fine-grained study of women's reproductive health places the voices of real women at the forefront of the narrative, providing a personal view into some of the most intense experiences of their lives. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Rhetorics of Motherhood Lindal Buchanan, 2013-04-08 Becoming a mother profoundly alters one’s perception of the world, as Lindal Buchanan learned firsthand when she gave birth. Suddenly attentive to representations of mothers and mothering in advertisements, fiction, film, art, education, and politics, she became intrigued by the persuasive force of the concept of motherhood, an interest that unleashed a host of questions: How is the construct defined? How are maternal appeals crafted, presented, and performed? What do they communicate about gender and power? How do they affect women? Her quest for answers has produced Rhetorics of Motherhood, the first book-length consideration of the topic through a feminist rhetorical lens. Although both male and female rhetors employ motherhood to promote themselves and their agendas, Buchanan argues it is particularly slippery terrain for women—on the one hand, affording them authority and credibility but, on the other, positioning them disadvantageously within the gendered status quo. Rhetorics of Motherhood investigates that paradox by detailing the cultural construction and performance of the Mother in American public discourse, tracing its use and impact in three case studies, and by theorizing how, when, and why maternal discourses work to women’s benefit or detriment. In the process, the reader encounters a fascinating array of issues—including birth control, civil rights, and abortion—and rhetors, ranging from Diane Nash and Margaret Sanger to Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama. As Buchanan makes clear, motherhood is a rich site for investigating the interrelationships among gender, power, and public discourse. Her latest book contributes to the discipline of rhetoric by attending to and making a convincing case for the significance of this understudied subject. With its examination of timely controversies, contemporary and historical figures, and powerful women, Rhetorics of Motherhood will appeal to a wide array of readers in rhetoric, communications, American studies, women’s studies, and beyond. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Impossible Motherhood Irene Vilar, 2009 Vilar was a young college undergraduate in awe of a 50-year-old professor when they embarked on a relationship that led to marriage--and 16 abortions in 15 years. In Impossible Motherhood, Vilar looks back on her history of addiction. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: And Now We Have Everything Meaghan O'Connell, 2018-04-10 A raw, funny, and fiercely honest account of becoming a mother before feeling like a grown up. When Meaghan O'Connell got accidentally pregnant in her twenties and decided to keep the baby, she realized that the book she needed -- a brutally honest, agenda-free reckoning with the emotional and existential impact of motherhood -- didn't exist. So she decided to write it herself. And Now We Have Everything is O'Connell's exploration of the cataclysmic, impossible-to-prepare-for experience of becoming a mother. With her dark humor and hair-trigger B.S. detector, O'Connell addresses the pervasive imposter syndrome that comes with unplanned pregnancy, the fantasies of a natural birth experience that erode maternal self-esteem, post-partum body and sex issues, and the fascinating strangeness of stepping into a new, not-yet-comfortable identity. Channeling fears and anxieties that are still taboo and often unspoken, And Now We Have Everything is an unflinchingly frank, funny, and visceral motherhood story for our times, about having a baby and staying, for better or worse, exactly yourself. Smart, funny, and true in all the best ways, this book made me ache with recognition. -- Cheryl Strayed |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Beggars and Choosers Rickie Solinger, 2002-09-18 In the late 1960s and early 1970s, advocates of legal abortion mostly used the term rights when describing their agenda. But after Roe v. Wade, their determination to develop a respectable, nonconfrontational movement encouraged many of them to use the word choice--an easier concept for people weary of various rights movements. At first the distinction in language didn't seem to make much difference-the law seemed to guarantee both. But in the years since, the change has become enormously important. In Beggars and Choosers, Solinger shows how historical distinctions between women of color and white women, between poor and middle-class women, were used in new ways during the era of choice. Politicians and policy makers began to exclude certain women from the class of deserving mothers by using the language of choice to create new public policies concerning everything from Medicaid funding for abortions to family tax credits, infertility treatments, international adoption, teen pregnancy, and welfare. Solinger argues that the class-and-race-inflected guarantee of choice is a shaky foundation on which to build our notions of reproductive freedom. Her impassioned argument is for reproductive rights as human rights--as a basis for full citizenship status for women. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Motherhood Sheila Heti, 2018-05-01 From the author of How Should a Person Be? (“one of the most talked-about books of the year”—Time Magazine) and the New York Times Bestseller Women in Clothes comes a daring novel about whether to have children. In Motherhood, Sheila Heti asks what is gained and what is lost when a woman becomes a mother, treating the most consequential decision of early adulthood with the candor, originality, and humor that have won Heti international acclaim and made How Should A Person Be? required reading for a generation. In her late thirties, when her friends are asking when they will become mothers, the narrator of Heti’s intimate and urgent novel considers whether she will do so at all. In a narrative spanning several years, casting among the influence of her peers, partner, and her duties to her forbearers, she struggles to make a wise and moral choice. After seeking guidance from philosophy, her body, mysticism, and chance, she discovers her answer much closer to home. Motherhood is a courageous, keenly felt, and starkly original novel that will surely spark lively conversations about womanhood, parenthood, and about how—and for whom—to live. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights Katha Pollitt, 2014-10-14 Argues that abortion is a common part of a woman's reproductive life and should not be vilified, but instead accepted as a moral right that can be a force for social good. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: The Law Giveth Barbara Milbauer, Bert N. Obrentz, 1984 |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Reproduction on the Reservation Brianna Theobald, 2019-08-20 This pathbreaking book documents the transformation of reproductive practices and politics on Indian reservations from the late nineteenth century to the present, integrating a localized history of childbearing, motherhood, and activism on the Crow Reservation in Montana with an analysis of trends affecting Indigenous women more broadly. As Brianna Theobald illustrates, the federal government and local authorities have long sought to control Indigenous families and women's reproduction, using tactics such as coercive sterilization and removal of Indigenous children into the white foster care system. But Theobald examines women's resistance, showing how they have worked within families, tribal networks, and activist groups to confront these issues. Blending local and intimate family histories with the histories of broader movements such as WARN (Women of All Red Nations), Theobald links the federal government's intrusion into Indigenous women's reproductive and familial decisions to the wider history of eugenics and the reproductive rights movement. She argues convincingly that colonial politics have always been--and remain--reproductive politics. By looking deeply at one tribal nation over more than a century, Theobald offers an especially rich analysis of how Indigenous women experienced pregnancy and motherhood under evolving federal Indian policy. At the heart of this history are the Crow women who displayed creativity and fortitude in struggling for reproductive self-determination. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Choice Words Annie Finch, 2020-04-07 A landmark literary anthology of poems, stories, and essays, Choice Words collects essential voices that renew our courage in the struggle to defend reproductive rights. Twenty years in the making, the book spans continents and centuries. This collection magnifies the voices of people reclaiming the sole authorship of their abortion experiences. These essays, poems, and prose are a testament to the profound political power of defying shame. Contributors include Ai, Amy Tan, Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde, Bobbie Louise Hawkins. Camonghne Felix, Carol Muske-Dukes, Diane di Prima, Dorothy Parker, Gloria Naylor, Gloria Steinem, Gwendolyn Brooks, Jean Rhys, Joyce Carol Oates, Judith Arcana, Kathy Acker, Langston Hughes, Leslie Marmon Silko, Lindy West, Lucille Clifton, Mahogany L. Browne, Margaret Atwood, Molly Peacock, Ntozake Shange, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Sharon Doubiago, Sharon Olds, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Sholeh Wolpe, Ursula Le Guin, and Vi Khi Nao. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Feminism in Action Jean F. O'Barr, 1994 Feminism in Action is Jean O'Barr's firsthand account of two decades spent working to promote the cause of higher education for women through the establishment of women's studies programs. The book brings together revised versions of O'Barr's most |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Modern Motherhood Jodi Vandenberg-Daves, 2014-05-26 How did mothers transform from parents of secondary importance in the colonies to having their multiple and complex roles connected to the well-being of the nation? In the first comprehensive history of motherhood in the United States, Jodi Vandenberg-Daves explores how tensions over the maternal role have been part and parcel of the development of American society. Modern Motherhood travels through redefinitions of motherhood over time, as mothers encountered a growing cadre of medical and psychological experts, increased their labor force participation, gained the right to vote, agitated for more resources to perform their maternal duties, and demonstrated their vast resourcefulness in providing for and nurturing their families. Navigating rigid gender role prescriptions and a crescendo of mother-blame by the middle of the twentieth century, mothers continued to innovate new ways to combine labor force participation and domestic responsibilities. By the 1960s, they were poised to challenge male expertise, in areas ranging from welfare and abortion rights to childbirth practices and the confinement of women to maternal roles. In the twenty-first century, Americans continue to struggle with maternal contradictions, as we pit an idealized role for mothers in children’s development against the social and economic realities of privatized caregiving, a paltry public policy structure, and mothers’ extensive employment outside the home. Building on decades of scholarship and spanning a wide range of topics, Vandenberg-Daves tells an inclusive tale of African American, Native American, Asian American, working class, rural, and other hitherto ignored families, exploring sources ranging from sermons, medical advice, diaries and letters to the speeches of impassioned maternal activists. Chapter topics include: inventing a new role for mothers; contradictions of moral motherhood; medicalizing the maternal body; science, expertise, and advice to mothers; uplifting and controlling mothers; modern reproduction; mothers’ resilience and adaptation; the middle-class wife and mother; mother power and mother angst; and mothers’ changing lives and continuous caregiving. While the discussion has been part of all eras of American history, the discussion of the meaning of modern motherhood is far from over. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Recreating Motherhood Barbara Katz Rothman, 1990 |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: When Abortion Was a Crime Leslie J. Reagan, 2022-02-22 The definitive history of abortion in the United States, with a new preface that equips readers for what’s to come. When Abortion Was a Crime is the must-read book on abortion history. Originally published ahead of the thirtieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this award-winning study was 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 that monumental case in 1973. When Abortion Was a Crime is filled with intimate stories and nuanced analysis, demonstrating how abortion was criminalized and policed—and how millions of women sought abortions regardless of the law. With this edition, Leslie J. Reagan provides a new preface that addresses the dangerous and ongoing threats to abortion access across the country, and the precarity of our current moment. While abortions have typically been portrayed as grim back alley operations, this deeply researched history confirms that many abortion providers—including physicians—practiced openly and safely, despite prohibitions by the state and the American Medical Association. Women could find cooperative and reliable practitioners; 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 increasingly under attack, this book remains the definitive history of abortion in the United States, offering vital lessons for every American concerned with health care, civil liberties, and personal and sexual freedom. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Salsa Dancing into the Social Sciences Kristin Luker, 2009-06-30 This book is both a handbook for defining and completing a research project, and an astute introduction to the neglected history and changeable philosophy of modern social science. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Belabored Lyz Lenz, 2020-08-11 In Belabored, Lyz Lenz will make you cry in one paragraph and snort-laugh in the next (Chloe Angyal, contributing editor at MarieClaire.com). Written with a blend of wit, snark, and raw intimacy, Belabored is an impassioned and irreverent defense of the autonomy, rights, and dignity of pregnant people. Lenz shows how religious, historical, and cultural myths about pregnancy have warped the way we treat pregnant people: when our representatives enact laws criminalizing abortion and miscarriage, when doctors prioritize the health of the fetus over the life of the pregnant patient in front of them, when baristas refuse to serve visibly pregnant women caffeine. She also reflects on her own experiences of carrying her two children and seeing how the sacrifices demanded during pregnancy carry over seamlessly into the cult of motherhood, where women are expected to play the narrowly defined roles of wife and mother rather than be themselves. Belabored is an urgent call for us to trust women and let them choose what happens to their own bodies, from a writer who is on a roll (Bitch Magazine). |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: The Moral Case for Abortion Ann Furedi, 2016-07-27 This thought-provoking book sets out the ethical arguments for a woman’s right to choose. Drawing on the traditions of sociological thinking and moral philosophy, it maintains that there is a strong moral case for recognizing autonomy in personal decision-making about reproductive intentions. More than this, it argues that to prevent a woman from making her own choice to continue or end her pregnancy is to undermine the essence of her humanity. The author, a provider of abortion services in the UK, asserts that true respect for human life and true regard for individual conscience demand that we respect a woman’s right to decide, and that support for a woman’s right to a termination has moral foundations and ethical integrity. This fresh perspective on abortion will interest both pro- and anti-choice individuals and organizations, along with academics in the fields of gender studies, philosophy, ethics and religion. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: The Turnaway Study Diana Greene Foster, 2021-06 Now with a new afterword by the author--Back cover. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Wake Up Little Susie Rickie Solinger, 2013-10-15 Rickie Solinger's passionate and powerful history serves to remind us of the importance of the feminist efforts that led to Roe v. Wade and the many other measures that have liberated women from the constraints of the past. -From the new foreword by Elaine Tyler May Twenty-five years after the Supreme Court's landmark decision, abortion rights are as fiercely contested as ever and current debates over welfare, workfare, and public assistance to women with children demonstrate the way in which race and class continue to effect women's reproductive freedom. A pioneering work, Wake Up Little Susie reveals how current attitudes toward these issues developed by examining their roots in the postwar era and discerning how differently they affected black and white women. A powerful and shocking book, Susie is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the complex and disturbing politics surrounding issues of race, class and reproductive rights. This new edition includes a foreword by the esteemed social historian, Elaine Tyler May, and an afterword by the author that places the issues examined in Susie in the context of the current controversies. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Mandatory Motherhood Garrett Hardin, 1974 |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: No Real Choice Katrina Kimport, 2021-10 No real choice -- Policies, poverty, and the organization of abortion care -- Privileging the fetus -- Choosing irresponsibility and harm -- Fearing the experience of abortion -- Choosing a baby -- Toward reproductive autonomy. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: You're the Only One I've Told Meera Shah, 2020-09-01 Moving, multifaceted, and deeply human...as eye-opening as it is compelling —Cecile Richards, author of Make Trouble At a time where reproductive rights are at risk, these vital stories of diverse individuals serve as a reminder of the importance of empathy, finding community and motivating advocacy For a long time, when people asked Dr. Meera Shah, Chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic, what she did, she would tell them she was a doctor and leave it at that. But when she started to be direct about her work as an abortion provider an interesting thing started to happen: one by one, people would confide that they'd had an abortion themselves. The refrain was often the same: You're the only one I've told. This book collects these stories as they've been told to Shah to humanize abortion and to combat myths that persist in the discourse that surrounds it. A wide range of ages, races, socioeconomic factors, and experiences shows that abortion always occurs in a unique context. Today, a healthcare issue that's so precious and foundational to reproductive, social, and economic freedom for millions of people is exploited by politicians who lack understanding or compassion about the context in which abortion occurs. Stories have the power to break down stigmas and help us to empathize with those whose experiences are unlike our own. A portion of proceeds will be donated to promote reproductive health access. |
abortion and the politics of motherhood: Beyond Abortion Mary Ziegler, 2018-02-23 Roe's privacy rationale inspired left-leaning movements unrelated to abortion--around sexual orientation, class, gender, race, disability, and patient rights. But groups on the right used it as well, to attack government involvement in American life. Mary Ziegler's analysis shows that privacy belongs to no party or cause. |
Abortion - World Health Organization (WHO)
Dec 3, 2024 · Making health for all a reality, and moving towards the progressive realization of human rights, requires that all individuals have access to quality health care, including …
Ask the expert: 10 questions on safe abortion care
Sep 26, 2022 · In July 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) hosted a Twitter space with Dr Bela Ganatra, head of the Prevention of Unsafe Abortion unit in the WHO Department of …
WHO issues new guidelines on abortion to help countries deliver ...
Mar 9, 2022 · Alongside the clinical and service delivery recommendations, the guidelines recommend removing medically unnecessary policy barriers to safe abortion, such as …
Abortion care guideline - World Health Organization (WHO)
Mar 8, 2022 · In this guideline, recommendations are presented across three domains that are essential to the provision of abortion care: Law and policy, Clinical services and Service delivery.
WHO releases new guidelines on safe abortion
Mar 9, 2022 · WHO has released new guidelines on abortion care in a bid to protect the health of women and girls and help prevent over 25 million unsafe abortions that currently occur each …
Abortion: Safety - World Health Organization (WHO)
Sep 24, 2020 · Can medical abortion be self-managed by the client herself? When using the combination mifepristone and misoprostol regimen, the medical abortion process can be self …
Aborto - World Health Organization (WHO)
El aborto peligroso se produce cuando una persona carente de la capacitación necesaria pone fin a un embarazo, o ello se hace en un entorno que no cumple las normas médicas mínimas, o …
From guidelines to implementation: increasing access to quality ...
Jan 6, 2025 · The International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) is working with national professional societies of obstetrics and gynaecology to improve access to self …
Ensuring healthy outcomes: Access to quality abortion care for the ...
Sep 28, 2022 · Access to the highest attainable standard of health, including sexual and reproductive health, is a core human right. The ability to decide if and when to have children, …
Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research (SRH)
Aug 7, 2023 · Life-threatening complications that may result from unsafe abortion include haemorrhage, infection, and injury to the genital tract and internal organs. In addition to the …
Abortion - World Health Organization (WHO)
Dec 3, 2024 · Making health for all a reality, and moving towards the progressive realization of human rights, requires that all individuals have access to quality health care, including …
Ask the expert: 10 questions on safe abortion care
Sep 26, 2022 · In July 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) hosted a Twitter space with Dr Bela Ganatra, head of the Prevention of Unsafe Abortion unit in the WHO Department of …
WHO issues new guidelines on abortion to help countries deliver ...
Mar 9, 2022 · Alongside the clinical and service delivery recommendations, the guidelines recommend removing medically unnecessary policy barriers to safe abortion, such as …
Abortion care guideline - World Health Organization (WHO)
Mar 8, 2022 · In this guideline, recommendations are presented across three domains that are essential to the provision of abortion care: Law and policy, Clinical services and Service delivery.
WHO releases new guidelines on safe abortion
Mar 9, 2022 · WHO has released new guidelines on abortion care in a bid to protect the health of women and girls and help prevent over 25 million unsafe abortions that currently occur each …
Abortion: Safety - World Health Organization (WHO)
Sep 24, 2020 · Can medical abortion be self-managed by the client herself? When using the combination mifepristone and misoprostol regimen, the medical abortion process can be self …
Aborto - World Health Organization (WHO)
El aborto peligroso se produce cuando una persona carente de la capacitación necesaria pone fin a un embarazo, o ello se hace en un entorno que no cumple las normas médicas mínimas, o …
From guidelines to implementation: increasing access to quality ...
Jan 6, 2025 · The International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) is working with national professional societies of obstetrics and gynaecology to improve access to self …
Ensuring healthy outcomes: Access to quality abortion care for …
Sep 28, 2022 · Access to the highest attainable standard of health, including sexual and reproductive health, is a core human right. The ability to decide if and when to have children, …
Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research (SRH)
Aug 7, 2023 · Life-threatening complications that may result from unsafe abortion include haemorrhage, infection, and injury to the genital tract and internal organs. In addition to the …