Research Guides: Women's History Month: Women's History Month, 2022 (Reproductive Rights)

Women's History Month, 2022

In honor of Women's History Month, I have gathered together some digital resources within and outside of the library. As it is impossible to encompass the entirety of women's history in a libguide, this year's guide will focus on reproductive rights.

We also acknowledge the reproductive rights of transgender people, and plan to highlight resources related to transgender health care in a future guide.

For additional resources having to do with Women's History Month, please see one of the following resources:

American Women: A Guide to Women's History Resources at the Library of Congress
The Library's unique and diverse collections are rich with resources for the study of women's history. This research guide gathers together a collection of topical guides and essays that tell the stories of women in America.
Women's History Month
March is Women's History Month
The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.

For help with finding more resources like these contact Prof. Foasberg through her profile below.

Ask any research librarian available for help through our Ask Us research service!

Reproductive Rights: Feature Films

While there are many relevant feature films about abortion (fewer about birth control or other reproductive rights issues), the library doesn't seem to have access to any of them!

If you're inclined to seek out some on your own, there are plenty of lists, but here are a couple.

Reproductive Rights: Documentary Films

Abortion and Reproductive Issues (Women and Social Action, Episode 113)
Topics covered in this lesson include the socio-historical context of abortion and the impact of such social factors as race, social class, religion and gender on abortion attitudes.
The Abortion Hotline
In Chile, where abortion remains illegal and punishable by imprisonment, we follow a group of young activists who put their lives at risk to run an underground abortion hotline.
From Our Strength: Birth and Indigenous Politics in Cañar, Ecuador
The film demonstrates that, even in an era of relentless globalization, the reasons for choices in childbirth practices are anything but straightforward. While the indigenous people view Western, biomedical birth as more "modern," they are at the same time choosing to integrate traditional and Western medicine during pregnancy and childbirth by relying on local midwives for prenatal care, then giving birth in clinics and hospitals rather than at home.
History of Sex: 20th Century
This special focuses on the 20th century's myriad innovations and movements--especially those of a sexual nature. Women in the workplace, the automobile and the motion picture are all integral parts of the early sexual revolution.
Voices of Choice
A 25-minute film created by Physicians for Reproductive Health in 2003, Voices of Choice documents the experiences of physicians involved in abortion care and reform prior to the landmark Supreme Court Roe decision in 1973.

Reproductive Rights: E-Books

Condom Nation by Alexandra M. Lord
ISBN: 9780801898709
Publication Date: 2010-01-01
This history of the U.S. Public Health Service's efforts to educate Americans about sex makes clear why federally funded sex education has been haphazard, ad hoc, and often ineffectual. Since launching its first sex ed program during World War I, the Public Health Service has dominated federal sex education efforts. Alexandra M. Lord draws on medical research, news reports, the expansive records of the Public Health Service, and interviews with former surgeons general to examine these efforts, from early initiatives through the administration of George W. Bush.
Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade by David J. Garrow
ISBN: 9781504015554
Publication Date: 2015-07-07
In 1973, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, and more than forty years later the issue continues to spark controversy and divisiveness. But behind this historic legal case lie the battles women fought to establish their rights to use contraceptives and choose to have an abortion. Liberty and Sexuality traces these political and legal struggles in the decades leading up to Roe v. Wade--including the momentous 1965 Supreme Court ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut that established a constitutional "right to privacy."
Matters of Choice by Iris Lopez; Iris Lopez
ISBN: 0813546249
Publication Date: 2008-12-10
Sterilization remains one of the most popular forms of fertility control in the world, but it has received little acknowledgment for decreasing birthrates on account of its dubious use as a means of population control, especially in developing countries. In Matters of Choice, Iris Lopez presents a comprehensive analysis of the dichotomous views that have portrayed sterilization either as part of a coercive program of population control or as a means of voluntary, even liberating, fertility control by individual women. Drawing upon her twenty-five years of research on sterilized Puerto Rican women from five different families in Brooklyn, Lopez untangles the interplay between how women make fertility decisions and their social, economic, cultural, and historical constraints.
The Moral Property of Women by Linda Gordon
ISBN: 1283959992
Publication Date: 2002-01-01
"The Moral Property of Women" is a thoroughly updated and revised version of the awardwinning historian Linda Gordon's classic study, "Woman's Body, Woman's Right" (1976). It is the only book to cover the entire history of the intense controversies about reproductive rights that have raged in the United States for more than 150 years. Arguing that reproduction control has always been central to women's status, Gordon shows how opposition to it has long been part of the entrenched opposition to gender equality
More Than Medicine by Jennifer Nelson
ISBN: 0814770894
Publication Date: 2015-03-06
In More Than Medicine, Jennifer Nelson reveals how feminists of the '60s and '70s applied the lessons of the new left and civil rights movements to generate a women's health movement. The new movement shifted from the struggle to revolutionize health care to the focus of ending sex discrimination and gender stereotypes perpetuated in mainstream medical contexts. Moving from the campaign for legal abortion to the creation of community clinics and feminist health centers, Nelson illustrates how these activists revolutionized health care by associating it with the changing social landscape in which women had power to control their own life choices.
Reproductive Rights and the State: Getting the Birth Control, RU-486, and Morning-After Pills and the Gardasil Vaccine to the U. S. Market by Melissa Haussman
ISBN: 0313398232
Publication Date: 2013-01-11
Reproductive Rights and the State: Getting the Birth Control, RU-486, and Morning-After Pills and the Gardasil Vaccine to the U.S. Market tackles a subject that remains controversial more than 60 years after "the pill" was approved for use in the United States. The first book to examine the politicization of the FDA approval process for reproductive drugs, this study maps the hard-fought battles over the four major drugs currently on the U.S. market. To make her case, Melissa Haussman scrutinizes the history of the FDA and the statutes that have governed it, as well as interactions between the U.S. government, American pharmaceutical companies, and the medical community.
The Search for an Abortionist by Nancy Howell Lee; Mark Crispin Miller (Editor)
ISBN: 9781497620322
Publication Date: 2014-06-10
In the years before Roe v. Wade, women seeking to end their unwanted pregnancies had limited options--many of them dangerous, even potentially fatal, and nearly all of them illegal. This groundbreaking work by sociologist Nancy Howell Lee, first published in 1969, takes an intimate look at the entire abortion process--from the initial decision to terminate a pregnancy through the procedure itself and the aftermath--providing an incomparable view of what is still one of the most controversial and divisive issues in America. With many state governments across America currently passing new legislation that restricts and, in many cases, effectively bans abortion, an eventual return to the pre-Roe days threatens the well-being of millions of women, making Nancy Howell Lee's pioneering study more relevant than ever. It is a must-read for all those interested in reproductive rights issues.
Three Generations, No Imbeciles by Paul A. Lombardo
ISBN: 0801890101
Publication Date: 2008-10-06
This is a chronicle of the 1927 Supreme Court case 'Buck v. Bell', which approved laws allowing states to perform surgery in order to prevent 'feebleminded and socially inadequate' people from having children.
Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement by Jennifer Nelson
ISBN: 9780814758212
Publication Date: 2003-10-01
Uncovers the truth behind the ideas, struggles, and eventually success of Black and Puerto Rican Nationalists regarding key feminist issues of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s While most people believe that the movement to secure voluntary reproductive control for women centered solely on abortion rights, for many women abortion was not the only, or even primary, focus. Jennifer Nelson tells the story of the feminist struggle for legal abortion and reproductive rights in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s through the particular contributions of women of color.

Primary Source Collections

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 This link opens in a new window
Digital collection of historical documents that illustrate women's history in the United States between 1600 and 2000; includes letters, speeches, essays, pamphlets, images and more.
This collection includes "Document Collections" -- groups of closely related sources documenting a particular moment or issue. For instance, there is a collection titled: "Why and How Did a Small Group of Maverick Abortion Providers Called the November Gang Come to Challenge Prevailing Conventions of Abortion Provision and What Were Their Innovations?" and another called "How Did the Debate between Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett Shape the Movement to Legalize Birth Control, 1915-1924?"

Discovering American Women's History Online (Middle Tennessee State University)
This database provides access to digital collections of primary sources (photos, letters, diaries, artifacts, etc.) that document the history of women in the United States.
Reproductive Rights: U.S. Supreme Court Cases (from Findlaw)
A list of significant cases of national prominence over the years. There are cases involving the reproductive rights of individuals, including the right to use contraception, plan a family, rear children, and gain access to reproductive healthcare. The links are to the full text of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
Reproductive Rights in History (Duke University)
This timeline seeks to document major moments in the history of reproductive rights in the United States through the 1980s. The purpose of this timeline is to serve as a tool to better contextualize the struggles and opposition that women fighting for reproductive rights faced from the 1950s to the 1980s, and to paint a picture of the legislative and logistical achievements and setbacks taking place behind the more personal narratives and experiences of women.
Videotape collection of the National Abortion Rights Action League, 1977-1992
A collection of NARAL videos collected and housed by Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute.