Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern AmericaDangerous Pregnancies tells the largely forgotten story of the German measles epidemic of the early 1960s and how it created national anxiety about dying, disabled, and "dangerous" babies. This epidemic would ultimately transform abortion politics, produce new science, and help build two of the most enduring social movements of the late twentieth century--the reproductive rights and the disability rights movements. At most a minor rash and fever for women, German measles (also known as rubella), if contracted during pregnancy, could result in miscarriages, infant deaths, and serious birth defects in the newborn. Award-winning writer Leslie J. Reagan chronicles for the first time the discoveries and dilemmas of this disease in a book full of intimate stories--including riveting courtroom testimony, secret investigations of women and doctors for abortion, and startling media portraits of children with disabilities. In exploring a disease that changed America, Dangerous Pregnancies powerfully illuminates social movements that still shape individual lives, pregnancy, medicine, law, and politics. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Observing Bodies | 22 |
Specter of Tragedy | 55 |
Wrongful Information | 105 |
Law Making and Law Breaking in an Epidemic | 139 |
If Unborn Babies Are Going to Be Protected | 180 |
From Anxiety to Rights | 221 |
NOTES | 243 |
| 331 | |
| 353 | |
Other editions - View all
Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America Leslie J. Reagan No preview available - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
abor abortion law abortion law reform African American attorney babies Beilenson birth control Birth Defects bodies California campaign Cataract Catholic CCTA century chap Chicago child clinical Cosgrove criminal abortion cultural danger deaf decision Dellen disability rights movement disabled disease doctors early expectant mothers fear fetus Finkbine future gender German measles German measles epidemic girls Gleitman Gregg History Hodgson hospital Ibid immunization infant infection investigation Journal Judith Walzer Leavitt June jury magazine malformations March of Dimes maternal rubella Medicine mental retardation miscarriage Motherhood movement National observed obstetrics pamphlet parents patients percent physicians polio political pregnancy pregnant women protect Public Health quotation rash Reagan reported reproductive Robert Cosgrove Rosalyn Rotheln rubella vaccine Sherri Finkbine social story thalidomide therapeutic abortion tion tragedy Transcript of Stewart unborn University Press vaccine Virginia Apgar virus woman worried York