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Highlights
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What it tells us is those in power with the public voice were criminalizing abortion in the 19th century. A small group of doctors were the ones who led the campaign to criminalize abortion in the U.S. And they were talking about how this was immoral, how women were not doing their duty to the nation to have more babies. Instead, the families were getting smaller. And women were not behaving properly as women. They were involved in politics, were in the public sphere, and were trying to get into medical school when they should be having children. And they were speaking of a very specific group: middle-class, white Protestant women, people of the same class as the men who ran the country. So they were really speaking to this fear that the demographic of the nation and the people in power would change, specifically that Catholic immigrants were having larger families, and they and people of color would outpopulate the true Americans as they saw themselves. So this criminalization of abortion was directed at ensuring the power of white supremacy and men and these particular physicians, because it was also directed at midwives and women doctors
✏️ This is a fascinating take on the issue, and adds to the list of things that men do over the centuries to keep women down.