Just 25 Reproductive Justice Books Literally Everyone Should Read—Yes, Everyone
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ICYMI: Reproductive health advocates have been worried about the future of abortion access since President Trump took office. Since 2016, he quickly reinstated the global gag rule and appointed two conservative justices to the Supreme Court. But when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—a bastion of reproductive rights—died just a month before the November 2020 election, it felt like the last nail in the coffin of Roe v. Wade. With a decisive conservative majority now in the Supreme Court, the future of abortion and other reproductive health services appears unclear. If you’re wondering how activists survived in a world before Roe or about the many barriers to care still facing communities of color today, here are the books you must read.
If you want some background on how you can be in charge of your own body:
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Book Collective. For fifty years, Our Bodies, Ourselves has been the introductory book for reproductive health care. What was once focused solely on women's health issues like pregnancy and menopause has expanded over the years to address issues like poverty, race, and gender identity, and their impact on reproductive health care, making it stand the test of time.
Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community edited by Laura Erickson-Schroth. Inspired by the classic Our Bodies, Ourselves, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves is the readers' comprehensive guide for caring for their body. Just as Our Bodies, Ourselves covered reproductive health issues like menstruation and pap smears, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves gets into topics like medical and surgical transition, parenthood, and mental health. Written entirely by transgender or genderqueer authors, each essay is a helpful guide for understanding trans health.
If you want to know what it was like in the United States before abortion was legal:
The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig. Before there was legal abortion, there was the battle for contraception itself and the ability to prevent a pregnancy from occurring in the first place. Eig's book is a highly detailed, highly informative account of the social and financial stumbling blocks that the creators of the first birth control pill faced in trying to get their product developed. It also doesn't shy away from the problematic aspects of the story in regards to medical consent, or the controversial histories of the figures involved in the groundbreaking achievement.
When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine and Law in the United States by Leslie Reagan. Roe v. Wade wasn't the beginning of abortion, it was just the beginning of legal abortion. Reagan's book details the nearly 100 years leading up to the Roe decision and how abortion went from illegal but mostly ignored to targeted by medical professionals and driven underground, only to eventually resurface and gain legal acceptance.
The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service by Laura Kaplan. While abortion was illegal, some women took matters into their own hands. The Story of Jane is a slightly fictionalized account of the women in Chicago who learned to perform abortions themselves and became a safe haven for illegal but safe procedures.
The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler. Of course, not everyone who got pregnant pre-Roe was able to access an abortion, or even wanted one. But for many of those — often teens — who did give birth, they did it in secrecy, and their children were stolen from them and given to "better" families to raise. Fessler's interviews with those who lost their babies during what became known as the "baby scoop" era is a heartbreaking reminder of why adoption must be entered into willingly and uncoerced.
If you want to read about what doctors providing services experience:
This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor by Susan Wicklund. In Wicklund's memoir, she explains what motivated her to become a provider — her own experience obtaining an abortion. In a candid, first-person account, Wicklund tells her own history, starting with an abortion in her family's past and continuing through the constant harassment and fear of being an abortion provider in the '80s and '90s.
Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion Before and After Roe v. Wade by Carole Joffe. What was it like to offer clandestine abortions before they were legal? How did doctors decide to add abortion as a service once it became legal? What professional and societal pressures were put on them once they chose to openly offer care? Joffe, a sociologist, talks to a number of early providers who tell their stories in their own words.
Fetus Fanatics: When Government Collaborates with Anti-Choice Zealots by Peggy Bowman. In 1991, Operation Rescue brought hundreds of "pro-life" activists to Wichita, Kansas, and shut down the abortion clinics for weeks in what was known as the "Summer of Mercy." Bowman, a pro-choice activist working for Dr. George Tiller, was at the center of the action, and tells about how the local government turned a blind eye, allowing the siege on the city's clinic to continue unabated, which she believes led to the escalating hostility that eventually resulted in abortion providers nationwide becoming direct targets of violence.
If you want to understand why abortion opponents do what they do:
Abandoned by Monica Migliorino Miller. There are an endless number of first-person anti-abortion accounts, but none have had the detail or quality of writing that Abandoned offers. Miller, an anti-abortion activist and photographer, tells the story of how she joined up with some of the most notorious anti-abortion activists of the '80s, and how their secret trips to recover the remains of aborted fetuses from Chicago clinics eventually became the foundation for many of the graphic images seen on posters and placards today. Quite possibly the best look inside the mind and motivations of an opponent of abortion.
Beyond the Abortion Wars: A Way Forward for a New Generation by Charles Camosy. Despite Camosy's best intentions, few who support reproductive rights will see his very strict exceptions for when abortion should be legal and how it should be performed in those rare cases to be any sort of workable "compromise." But what Camosy does offer in his book is a seldom seen and very earnest advocacy for reforms like paid pregnancy leave, more health care, universal pre-K, and child care support, and even more penalties for domestic violence or refusing to provide child support — reforms both sides of the aisle should be able to get behind.
Wrath of Angels: The American Abortion War by James Risen and Judy Thomas. Starting with the legalization of abortion and the early days of the "Rescue" movement — those activists best known for barricading clinic doors in the '80s and early '90s — the book follows the struggle to keep clinics open until the introduction of the FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act. The two reporters detail the lives of some of the most passionate and persistent anti-abortion advocates, including the powers struggles within their own movement. Likely the most accessible book on the birth of the "pro-life" movement.
If you want to understand how reproductive rights have been under assault since Roe:
The War on Choice: The Right-Wing Attack on Women's Rights and How to Fight Back by Gloria Feldt. While abortion rights and access to birth control have been under continuous assault since the 2010 election, the dismantling of these rights began even earlier. Feldt, the former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, documents the beginning of the onslaught, which escalated during the Bush administration, in her now 16-year-old but still relevant book.
How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Sex, Virtue, and the Way We Live Now by Christina Page. According to Page, the religious right doesn't just want to overturn Roe, they want to end access to contraception too, and make sex a thing only married people do and just when they want to have children. She explains the many-pronged ways they are trying to undermine your sex life, from pharmacist refusals of birth control prescriptions to abstinence-only sex ed in school, and then champions the somehow controversial idea that sex for enjoyment alone is actually a good thing.
PRO: Reclaiming Abortion Rights by Katha Pollitt. Can people win back their reproductive rights when they are ashamed to even talk about abortion? That's the premise behind Pollitt's book, as she urges everyone to delve into the abortion wars to better understand that abortion is not shameful.
Shout Your Abortion edited by Amelia Bonow and Emily Nokes. When Congress tried to defund Planned Parenthood in 2015, Amelia Bonow disclosed her own abortion experience and started a movement with the hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion. SYA quickly spread across the country, with people sharing their abortion stories through art, music, comedy, and fashion. This 2018 book documents those projects with essays and photography that reject the notion that abortion is supposed to be shameful and instead celebrate the right to choose.
If you want to dive into reproductive justice:
Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement by Jennifer Nelson. Nelson's book brings to the forefront the women of color vocally advocating for legal abortion rights — often in opposition to those in their own community. It's a must-read for those who want to learn how the battle for abortion rights evolved into reproductive justice.
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts. There is perhaps no more important book when it comes to tracing the history of reproductive oppression faced by African American women in the United States. From slavery to coerced sterilization to welfare caps, Roberts lays out centuries of assault on Black women and families with regard to when and if they are allowed to control their own reproductive lives.
Taking Children: A History of American Terror by Laura Briggs. Reproductive justice has always been about much more than the right to choose -- it’s also about the right to safely parent the children you choose to have. In Taking Children, Briggs dives into the sweeping 400 year history of the United States separating Black, Native, and Latinx children from their parents -- from slavery to the Native American boarding school system. Although family separations at the border have sparked outrage in recent years, Briggs’ book shows that the practice is nothing new.
Reproductive Justice: The Politics of Health Care for Native American Women by Barbara Gurr. You may have heard that the Hyde Amendment prevents federal dollars from funding abortions, meaning that folks on Medicaid cannot use their insurance for abortion care. But, did you know that the same rule applies to other federal programs, including the Indian Health Service? In Reproductive Justice, Gurr examines access to reproductive healthcare on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota--from abortion access to care after sexual assault and prenatal appointments.
Our Bodies, Our Crimes: The Policing of Women's Reproduction in America by Jeanne Flavin. Flavin explains in detail how women are targeted and punished through the court system while pregnant or raising children, especially when they don't conform to society's standard idea of what constitutes being an ideal mother.
Policing the National Body: Race, Gender and Criminalization in the United States by Jael Silliman and Anannya Bhattacharjee. There is no reproductive freedom without actual freedom, and for poor communities and communities of color, incarceration is a daily threat. Policing the National Body focuses on how reproductive rights are limited in a society ready to punish those who are undocumented, poor, or of color, and speaks directly to the populations often underrepresented in the mainstream reproductive rights movement.
If you want to understand how the U.S. Influences reproductive health access worldwide:
The Global Gag Rule and Women's Reproductive Health: Rhetoric Versus Reality by Yana van der Meulen Rodgers. Just like the Hyde Amendment prevents any federal dollars from funding abortions in the U.S., the “global gag rule” prohibits any healthcare organization abroad from even mentioning abortion if they receive U.S. funding. The rule has been reinstated under every Republican administration since Ronald Regan and in 2017 Donald Trump went even further by expanding the policy. In her book, Rodgers argues that the global gag rule doesn’t actually reduce abortions, but instead cuts funding for vital contraceptive, pre-natal, and childcare programs.
If you want a lot of facts about abortion and reproductive rights issues:
Reproductive Politics, What Everyone Needs to Know, Rickie Solinger. Solinger's book explores abortion, assisted reproductive technologies, "personhood," and other reproductive issues in simple, straightforward language that anyone — academic or layperson — can digest. With its brief summaries and documentation of how each particular reproductive issue has evolved over time due to political changes and pressure, think of it as a Reproductive Rights 101 textbook.
Every Third Woman in America: How Legal Abortion Transformed Our Nation, Dr. David Grimes. Written by a doctor, the book is a bit drier and more medical than many others on the list, but also involves far more scientifically accurate and fact-based information about abortion's impact on those who undergo them and on society on the whole. In addition to telling of his own time as an abortion provider, Grimes patiently explains away the myths anti-abortion activists have inserted into the debate, such as abortion causing breast cancer or the likelihood of injury during a procedure.
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