Person

Leslie J. Reagan

Related Excerpts

A cemetery with a dusting of snow.

Safer Than Childbirth

Abortion in the 19th century was widely accepted as a means of avoiding the risks of pregnancy.

The Women of Jane

The story of an underground abortion service that operated pre-Roe vs. Wade.

Abortion in American History

How do ideological debates on gender roles influence the abortion debate?
A drawing of fetus in uterus, feet down, and fetus in uterus, head down.

After a Miscarriage, What Happens to the Fetus? The History is Complicated.

The management of fetal remains has a complicated history in Western Europe and the United States.
An abstact piece of a naked blue woman and a cage.

Abortion’s Long History

Abortion has been an inescapable fact of life for millennia. So why do women gain or lose control over their reproductive lives at different times in history?
Woman in a hospital bed reading a pamphlet called "After the Abortion."

Her “Health and Thus Her Life”

Abortion exceptions in legal history.
Oil painting by Claire Lehmann called "Painter’s Hand, Patron’s Hand."

Learning and Not Learning Abortion

The fact that most doctors like me don't know how to perform abortions is one of the greatest scandals of contemporary medicine in the US.
Mug shot of a woman in the Jane Collective.
partner

Abortion Was Illegal. This Secret Group Defied the Law.

We tell the story of the Jane Collective, which provided thousands of illegal abortions fin Chicago rom 1969 to 1973, before Roe v. Wade.

Mother’s Friend: Birth Control in Nineteenth-Century America

How antebellum women prevented themselves from getting pregnant during an era when their identity was founded on being a mother.

Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles

A brief history of self-induced abortion.
Boy with mumps.

"How Serious is the Mumps?"

How a disease often portrayed as harmlessly humorous became the target of one of the most effective vaccination campaigns in U.S. history.