The Politics of Abortion and Birth Control in Historical Perspective

These essays examine birth control, abortion, family planning, and population control in a public policy context from the nineteenth century to the present. While there is extensive literature on the social history, politics, and legal aspects of family planning in the United States, the history of family planning as a policy remains to be fully recorded. This volume attempts to contribute to this history by examining birth control and abortion within a larger cultural, policy, and comparative framework. The essays contained in this volume represent a variety of perspectives and scholarly interests. In many instances the authors differ with each other as well as with the editor on fundamental points of historical interpretation. They all, however, share a committment to study the politics of population within a scholarly framework that emphasizes the importance of policy history for understanding past and contemporary problems.