Tracing the long history of abortion and criminalization

Despite a flawed analysis of the roots of women's oppression, In Abortion—A History by Mary Fissell widens the discussion around decriminalization

By Pauline Brady, Socialist Worker
Wednesday 07 January 2026

In Abortion—A History, Mary Fissell lays out a vast history of abortion across the world. She goes right back to ancient Greece, when abortion was as common as taking painkillers is now.

It is clear the perception of abortion has been significantly influenced by state-led women’s oppression and by religion, rather than the needs of pregnant people.

The book draws on transcripts and records that have survived for thousands of years. It is a great historical resource into how abortion has been weaponised to control the lives of women.

Continued: https://socialistworker.co.uk/reviews-and-culture/tracing-the-long-history-of-abortion-and-criminalisation/

07.01.2026

USA – After “Abortion”: A 1966 Book and the World That It Made

“We were all considered slightly cracked, if not outright fanatics, that first year.” —Larry Lader, Abortion II

Nov 4, 2025
By Karen Weingarten

“Abortion is the dread secret of our society.”1 So began journalist Larry Lader’s controversial book, Abortion, published in 1966 after years of rejection from publishers. If you had told Lader or the mere handful of activists then dedicated to legalizing abortion that a Supreme Court case would overturn anti-abortion laws across the US seven years later—in a January 1973 case named Roe v. Wade—they probably would have laughed. In fact, in the early 1960s when Lader began researching, it was harder to get an abortion in the US than it had been in the early decades of the twentieth century. In 1966, American doctors—who were overwhelmingly white men—tightly controlled women’s reproductive options. And women of color, primarily Black and Latina women, had even fewer choices if they found themselves accidentally pregnant. Nearly 80 percent of all illegal abortion fatalities were women of color—primarily Black and Puerto Rican.2 And, worst of all, as Lader documented, deaths from illegal abortions had doubled in the preceding decade.

Continued: https://www.publicbooks.org/after-abortion-a-1966-book-and-the-world-that-it-made/

Jessica Valenti Says Her Work on Abortion Isn’t “Preaching to the Choir.” It’s Arming It.

In an interview with Vanity Fair about her new book, Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win, Valenti discusses whom she’s writing to, how the right is forecasting its next move, and why she’s never bought into the mainstream framing of abortion rights.

By Katie Herchenroeder, Vanity Fair
October 1, 2024

Jessica Valenti writes and talks about abortion like someone who thinks about it for dozens of hours every week—because she does.

For around two years—since the fall of Roe—Valenti has been writing about reproductive justice every day in her newsletter, aptly titled Abortion, Every Day. But, in her new book, Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win, she jokes that she could have called the newsletter Abortion, Every Hour, because “that’s how quickly things are moving in post-Roe America.”

Continued: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/jessica-valenti-says-her-work-on-abortion-isnt-preaching-to-the-choir-its-arming-it

01.10.2024

Argentina – The Abortion Plot

A newly translated novel by the Argentinean writer Sara Gallardo provides a missing link in the history of abortion literature.

By S. C. Cornell
December 9, 2023

In the nineteenth century, when a character had premarital sex, you held your breath not for an abortion but for a wedding. Think of “Pride and Prejudice,” where Lydia’s child marriage comes as a great relief. The marriage plot relegates the actual having of children to the last page, just after the rice is thrown and the reader assured that our heroine will be happy and rich. If great Western literature of the time does allude to abortion, it does so subtly or with plausible deniability. The first time I read “War and Peace,” I managed to miss the suggestion that Hélène died of an overdose of abortifacient drugs. In “Middlemarch,” when Rosamond goes horseback riding against the explicit wishes of her doctor husband and subsequently miscarries, Eliot hastens to explain that this was a “misfortune” and that “there were plenty of reasons why she should be tempted to resume her riding.”

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-abortion-plot

09.12.2023

With recent book, Bay Area author and physician reflects on life as a parent and her work as an abortion doctor

by Karla Kane / Palo Alto Weekly
Sun, Jan 15, 2023

Life is full of choices, big and small, but there is also much that's out of our control.

In her new memoir, "Boundless: An Abortion Doctor Becomes a Mother," author Christine Henneberg ponders the concept of choice — from her own career decisions and journey toward motherhood to the importance of trusting the choices of her patients — and how to reconcile a need for boundaries with the boundless love and dedication of parenthood. Though it's a deeply personal book, Henneberg also beautifully recounts many stories of patients, family members, friends and colleagues that have stuck with her over the years, from harrowing to heartwarming (and sometimes both at once).

https://www.pleasantonweekly.com/news/2023/01/15/with-recent-book-bay-area-author-and-physician-reflects-on-life-as-a-parent-and-her-work-as-an-abortion-doctor

15.01.2023