Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America

A sweeping chronicle of women’s battles for reproductive freedom throughout American history, Pregnancy and Power explores the many forces - social, racial, economic, and political - that have shaped women’s reproductive lives in the United States. Leading historian Rickie Solinger argues that a woman’s control over her body involves much more than the right to choose an abortion. Reproductive politics were at play when slaveholders devised breeding schemes, when the U.S. government took Indian children from their families in the nineteenth century, and when doctors pressed Latina women to be sterilized in the 1970s. Tracing the diverse plot lines of women’s reproductive lives throughout American history, Solinger redefines the idea of reproductive freedom, putting race and class at the center of the effort to control sex and pregnancy in America over time.