Mary Fissell’s fascinating book, Abortion: A History, whirls readers from Cicero’s Rome to 16th-century ‘witches’ to modern-day Ireland
Ella Whelan
01 March 2025
“A beautiful thing to watch”: that’s the phrase Donald Trump used to describe the slew of anti-abortion bills passed by American states in 2022, after “Roe v Wade”, a 50-year-old legal judgement in favour of abortion rights, was overturned by the US Supreme Court. While Trump’s personal views on abortion are unknown – over the decades, they’ve swayed with the breeze of whatever has made him popular – his recent words, not to mention the views of his vice-president JD Vance and their evangelical supporters, are the sort you hear described as “from the dark ages”. Abortion-rights activists, in fact, tend to make this kind of distinction: the “pro-choice” movement is progressive and future-oriented, and the “pro-life” (or “anti-choice”) crowd are stuck in the past.
But, according to a new book by the American historian Mary Fissell, the Trumpists’ view of abortion – “heartbeat bills”, no mercy for rape victims, a focus on the “unborn” – isn’t even an accurate representation of the past (whether that past is idolised or despised). In Abortion: A History, she charts a different timeline.
Continued: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/review-mary-fissell-abortion-history/