Women & Gender Studies
Books in the U of L Collection
The Turnaway Study by
"If you read only one book about democracy, The Turnaway Study should be it. Why? Because without the power to make decisions about our own bodies, there is no democracy." --Gloria Steinem "Dr. Diana Greene Foster brings what is too often missing from the public debate around abortion: science, data, and the real-life experiences of people from diverse backgrounds...This should be required reading for every judge, member of Congress, and candidate for office--as well as anyone who hopes to better understand this complex and important issue." --Cecile Richards, cofounder of Supermajority, former president of Planned Parenthood, and author of Make Trouble A groundbreaking and illuminating look at the state of abortion access in America and the first long-term study of the consequences--emotional, physical, financial, professional, personal, and psychological--of receiving versus being denied an abortion on women's lives. What happens when a woman seeking an abortion is turned away? Diana Greene Foster, PhD, decided to find out. With a team of scientists--psychologists, epidemiologists, demographers, nursing scholars, and public health researchers--she set out to discover the effect of receiving versus being denied an abortion on women's lives. Over the course of a ten-year investigation that began in 2007, she and her team followed a thousand women from more than twenty states, some of whom received their abortions, some of whom were turned away. Now, for the first time, the results of this landmark study--the largest of its kind to examine women's experiences with abortion and unwanted pregnancy in the United States--have been gathered together in one place. Here Foster presents the emotional, physical, and socioeconomic outcomes for women who received their abortion and those who were denied. She analyzes the impact on their mental and physical health, their careers, their romantic lives, their professional aspirations, and even their existing and future children--and finds that women who received an abortion were almost always better off than women who were denied one. Interwoven with these findings are ten riveting first-person narratives by women who share their candid stories. As the debate about abortion rights intensifies, The Turnaway Study offers an in-depth examination of the real-world consequences for women of being denied abortions and provides evidence to refute the claim that abortion harms women. With brilliant synthesis and startling statistics--that thousands of American women are unable to access abortions; that 99% of women who receive an abortion do not regret it five years later--The Turnaway Study is a necessary and revelatory look at the impact of abortion access on people's lives.
Call Number: E-Book at U of L LibraryPublication Date: 2020
Fit to Be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980 by
The 1960s revolutionized American contraceptive practice. Diaphragms, jellies, and condoms with high failure rates gave way to newer choices of the Pill, IUD, and sterilization. Fit to Be Tied provides a history of sterilization and what would prove to become, at once, socially divisive and a popular form of birth control. During the first half of the twentieth century, sterilization (tubal ligation and vasectomy) was a tool of eugenics. Individuals who endorsed crude notions of biological determinism sought to control the reproductive decisions of women they considered "unfit" by nature of race or class, and used surgery to do so. Incorporating first-person narratives, court cases, and official records, Rebecca M. Kluchin examines the evolution of forced sterilization of poor women, especially women of color, in the second half of the century and contrasts it with demands for contraceptive sterilization made by white women and men. She chronicles public acceptance during an era of reproductive and sexual freedom, and the subsequent replacement of the eugenics movement with "neo-eugenic" standards that continued to influence American medical practice, family planning, public policy, and popular sentiment.
Call Number: E-book & print copy: HQ 766.5 U5 K55 2009Publication Date: 2009
Women against Abortion: Inside the Largest Moral Reform Movement of the Twentieth Century by Call Number: E-book & print copy: HQ 767.5 U5 H397 2017Publication Date: 2017
More Than Medicine: A History of the Feminist Women's Health Movement by Call Number: E-book & print copy: RA 564.85 N44 2015Publication Date: 2015
Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement by Call Number: E-book available at U of L LibraryPublication Date: 2020
Legalizing LGBT Families by
In-depth interviews examine the role of the law in the lives of LGBT parents The decision to have a child is seldom a simple one, often fraught with complexities regarding emotional readiness, finances, marital status, and compatibility with life and career goals. Rarely, though, do individuals consider the role of the law in facilitating or inhibiting their ability to have a child or to parent. For LGBT individuals, however, parenting is saturated with legality - including the initial decision of whether to have a child, how to have a child, whether one's relationship with their child will be recognized, and everyday acts of parenting. Through interviews with 137 LGBT parents, Amanda K. Baumle and D'Lane R. Compton examine the role of the law in the lives of LGBT parents and how individuals use the law when making decisions about family formation or parenting. Baumle and Compton explore the ways in which LGBT parents participate in the process of constructing legality through accepting, modifying, or rejecting legal meanings about their families. They conclude that legality is constructed through a complex interplay of legal context, social networks, individual characteristics, and familial desires. Ultimately, the stories of LGBT parents in this book reflect a rich and varied relationship between the law, the state, and the private family goals of individuals.
Call Number: E-book at U of L LibraryPublication Date: 2015
Women of Color and the Reproductive Rights Movement by
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. She explores the relationship between second-wave feminists, who were concerned with a woman's right to choose, Black and Puerto Rican Nationalists, who were concerned that Black and Puerto Rican women have as many children as possible "for the revolution," and women of color themselves, who negotiated between them. Contrary to popular belief, Nelson shows that women of color were able to successfully remake the mainstream women's liberation and abortion rights movements by appropriating select aspects of Black Nationalist politics--including addressing sterilization abuse, access to affordable childcare and healthcare, and ways to raise children out of poverty--for feminist discourse.
Call Number: Print & E-book copies at U of L LibraryPublication Date: 2003
Facing Eugenics by
Facing Eugenics is a social history of sexual sterilization operations in twentieth-century Canada. Looking at real-life experiences of men and women who, either coercively or voluntarily, participated in the largest legal eugenics program in Canada, it considers the impact of successive legal policies and medical practices on shaping our understanding of contemporary reproductive rights. The book also provides deep insights into the broader implications of medical experimentation, institutionalization, and health care in North America. Erika Dyck uses a range of historical evidence, including medical files, court testimony, and personal records to place mental health and intelligence at the centre of discussions regarding reproductive fitness. Examining acts of resistance alongside heavy-handed decisions to sterilize people considered "unfit," Facing Eugenics illuminates how reproductive rights fit into a broader discussion of what constitutes civil liberties, modern feminism, and contemporary psychiatric survivor and disability activism.
Call Number: Print & E-Book copies at U of L LibraryPublication Date: 2013
Baby trouble in the last best West : making new people in Alberta, 1905-1939 by Call Number: Print & E-Book copies at U of L LibraryPublication Date: 2017
Beyond Expectation: Lesbian/bi/queer women and assisted conception by
An in-depth study of lesbian, bi, and queer women's experiences of thinking about and trying to become a parent, Beyond Expectation draws on eighty-two narrative interviews conducted during the late 1990s in British Columbia. Jacquelyne Luce chronicles these women's experiences, which took place from 1980 to 2000, during a period that saw significant changes to the governance of assisted reproduction and the status of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender parents and same-sex partners. Beyond Expectation looks closely at the changing contexts in which women's experiences occurred and draws attention to complex issues such as 'contracting' relationships, mediating understandings of biology and genetics, and decision-making amidst various social, legal, and medical developments. Luce skillfully juxtaposes the stories of her interviewees with the wider public discourses about lesbian/bi/queer parenting and reproductive technology and highlights gaps in existing legislative reforms. Most importantly, Beyond Expectation foregrounds the lived experiences of lesbian, bi, and queer women as they negotiate kinship at the intersection of reproduction, technology, and politics.
Call Number: Print & E-Book copies at U of L LibraryPublication Date: 2010
Abortion under Apartheid by
Abortion Under Apartheid examines the politics of abortion in South Africa during the apartheid era (1948-1990), when termination of pregnancy was criminalized. It analyzes the flourishing clandestine abortion industry, the prosecution of medical and "backstreet" abortionists, and the passagein 1975 of the country's first statutory law on abortion. Susanne M. Klausen reveals how ideas about sexuality were fundamental to apartheid culture and shows that the authoritarian National Party government - alarmed by the spread of "permissiveness" in white society - attempted to regulate whitewomen's reproductive sexuality in the interests of maintaining white supremacy.A major focus of the book is the battle over abortion that erupted in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when doctors and feminists, inspired by international developments, called for liberalization of the colonial-era common law that criminalized abortion. The movement for legal reform spurred avariety of political, social, and religious groups to grapple with the meaning of abortion in the context of changing ideas about the traditional family and women's place within it. Abortion Under Apartheid demonstrates that all women, regardless of race, were oppressed under apartheid. Yet,although the National Party was preoccupied with denying young, unmarried white women reproductive control, black girls and women bore the brunt of the lack of access to safe abortion, suffering the effects on a shocking scale.At the heart of the story are the black and white girls and women who - regardless of hostility from partners, elders, religious institutions, nationalist movements, conservative doctors and nurses, or the government - persisted in determining their own destinies. Although a great many were harmedand even died as a result of being denied safe abortions, many more succeeded in thwarting opponents of women's right to control their capacity to bear children. This book conveys both the tragic and triumphant sides of their story.
Call Number: Print & E-Book copies at U of L LibraryPublication Date: 2018
Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective by
It is increasingly implausible to speak of a purely domestic abortion law, as the legal debates around the world draw on precedents and influences of different national and regional contexts. While the United States and Western Europe may have been the vanguard of abortion law reform in the latter half of the twentieth century, Central and South America are proving to be laboratories of thought and innovation in the twenty-first century, as are particular countries in Africa and Asia. Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective offers a fresh look at significant transnational legal developments in recent years, examining key judicial decisions, constitutional texts, and regulatory reforms of abortion law in order to envision ways ahead. The chapters investigate issues of access, rights, and justice, as well as social constructions of women, sexuality, and pregnancy, through different legal procedures and regimes. They address the promises and risks of using legal procedure to achieve reproductive justice from different national, regional, and international vantage points; how public and courtroom debates are framed within medical, religious, and human rights arguments; the meaning of different narratives that recur in abortion litigation and language; and how respect for women and prenatal life is expressed in various legal regimes. By exploring how legal actors advocate, regulate, and adjudicate the issue of abortion, this timely volume seeks to build on existing developments to bring about change of a larger order. Contributors: Luis Roberto Barroso, Paola Bergallo, Rebecca J. Cook, Bernard M. Dickens, Joanna N. Erdman, Lisa M. Kelly, Adriana Lamačková, Julieta Lemaitre, Alejandro Madrazo, Charles G. Ngwena, Rachel Rebouché, Ruth Rubio-Marín, Sally Sheldon, Reva B. Siegel, Verónica Undurraga, Melissa Upreti.
Call Number: Print & E-Book copies at U of L LibraryPublication Date: 2014
Keywords for Reproductive Rights Issues
Hi! This section has been developed over many years of supporting Dr. Carol Williams' WGST 3010 class.
Keywords we have used in the past (don't forget to put the word AND between your different concepts).
Standard Keywords
- Abortion
- Moral and ethical aspects
- Social aspects
- Psychological aspects
- Religious aspects
- Pro-life, pro-life movement, social movements (have also seen pro life without the hyphen)
- Pro-choice, pro-choice movement, pro choice
- autonomy
- stigma
Abortion as a Political/Voting Issue
- Issue voting
- Abortion AND elections
- Voting, voting behavior (opted for the American spelling as per LCSH)
- Politicians, elected officials, political candidates, Trump AND abortion
- Abortion AND politicians AND “issue voting”
- Abortion AND laws and legislation, AND government policy
Fetus as a Person via Fetal Development
- Fetal development, conception, development
- Tried foetus for alternate spelling, but difference in results was negligible
- Attitudes, ethics, social aspects, religion, religious aspects
- Fetus AND rights, human rights
- Moral and ethical aspects (this one worked well)
- Fetus AND moral and ethical aspects
- Observations: even this subtopic has multiple topics within it and multiple disciplinary approaches – student must choose which points to argue (fetal rights through religion, though health sciences via fetal development of heart/limbs/brain/etc, philosophy & ethics)
Fetus v. Birth Parent
- Abortion AND human rights
- Abortion AND women’s rights
- Maternal-fetal
- Moral and ethical aspects, social aspects
- Pregnant women AND legal status
- Fetus AND legal status
- Pro-woman
Men’s Rights
- Men, men’s rights, male, men AND rights
- Abortion, decisions, choices, decision making
- Psychological aspects (this one worked quite well), counseling (use one “l” as it is the American spelling that works better for LCSH)
- Case in Canada: Tremblay v. Daigle [1989] Supreme Court decision (link provided to case in the CanLii database - also look at the History, Cited docs, Cite by, info). Secondary sources and commentary in other Library databases.
Keywords from University of Illinois LibGuide
- Abortion
- Abortion -- Law and legislation
- Birth control
- Mifepristone (the "abortion pill")
- Miscarriage
- Partial birth abortion ban
- Plan B (the "morning after pill")
- Pro-choice movement
- Pro-life movement
- Reproductive rights
- Roe v. Wade
- Women's health services
Other LibGuides (keep in mind that you will probably not be able to log into their subscription resources - ask Paula about interlibrary loan if necessary):
For WGST 3100: Other LibGuides of interest to you: APA, MLA, Writing your Paper (Research Paper, Book Review, Annotated Bibliography), Evaluating Sources, Government Resources, Statistics, and guides by subject (click on the Guides tab and go to the 2nd column).
Contact Paula using the email or chat links to the right, particularly if you're interested in a Research Appointment!
Paula main advice: Start early and ask for help if you need it.
Textbooks used in WGST-3100
Without Apology: Writings on abortion in Canada by
Until the late 1960s, the authorities on abortion were for the mostpart men--politicians, clergy, lawyers, physicians, all of whomhad an interest in regulating women's bodies. Even today, when wehear women speak publicly about abortion, the voices are usually thoseof the leaders of women's and abortion rights organizations,women who hold political office, and, on occasion, female physicians.We also hear quite frequently from spokeswomen for anti-abortiongroups. Rarely, however, do we hear the voices of ordinarywomen--women whose lives have been in some way touched byabortion. Their thoughts typically owe more to human circumstance thanto ideology, and without them, we run the risk of thinking and talkingabout the issue of abortion only in the abstract. Without Apology seeks to address this issue by gatheringthe voices of activists, feminists, and scholars as well as abortionproviders and clinic support staff alongside the stories of women whoseexperience with abortion is more personal. With the particular aim ofmoving beyond the polarizing rhetoric that has characterized the issueof abortion and reproductive justice for so long, WithoutApology is an engrossing and arresting account that will promoteboth reflection and discussion.
Call Number: Available in print & e-book at U of L LibraryPublication Date: 2016
Fired up about Reproductive Rights by
What is at stake in the fight for safe, legal, and accessible abortion services? And who benefits from our dark legacy of coercive sterilization, eugenics, and population control? Reproductive rights are rights that everyone should be fired up about! Decades after abortion was legalized and decriminalized in Canada, the US, and the UK, why are we still fighting for reproductive rights? Shattering the myth that the battle for reproductive rights has already been won, Fired Up about Reproductive Rightsshows us the many ways our reproductive lives remain subject to state control. From the fight for safe, legal, and accessible abortion services to the fight against coercive sterilization, eugenics, and population control, threats to our reproductive control remain alive and well in our communities. Engaging with the reproductive justice framework advanced by women of colour, the book presents the fight for reproductive rights as contingent with other social justice issues, and forces us to grapple with the weaknesses of the feminist and reproductive rights movement as it exists. Accessible and engaging, this book gives readers the tools to understand-and fight against-contemporary threats to our reproductive rights.
Call Number: Print copy in collection, e-book on orderPublication Date: 2017
Recommended by Dr. Carol Williams
Check out this annotated bibliography from U of T's Faculty of Law on access to abortion resources.
Our Bodies, Our Stories: The Evolving Meaning of Reproductive Justice in Canada
Recommended by Dr. Suzanne Lenon
Parkland Institute Report
Here's a link to the report co-authored by Dr. Carol Williams = Political Challenges & Digital Frontiers: Reproductive Health & Services in Southern Alberta
Colonialism and Reproductive Justice in Arctic Canada: The Neglected Historical and Contemporary Analysis of Genocidal Policies on Arctic Indigeneous Reproductive Rights
The intention of this research is to draw connections between historical and contemporary colonialism in so-called “canada” (canada), and the lack of reproductive justice for Arctic Indigenous communities. Further, this research will seek to identify a lack of Arctic Indigenous reproductive justice within a larger legacy of colonial genocide, by imposing measures intended to prevent the births of Indigenous children, and by forcibly displacing Indigenous children from their communities. Click here.
Films about Reproductive Rights
- Birthright: A War Story This is the real-life version of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” In America today, a radical movement has tightened its grip on state power, seeking to control whether and how women bear children. In this crusade, pregnant women are subject to state control, surveillance, and punishment. Even women who don’t want an abortion face shocking risks—like the pregnant woman in Alabama who faced criminal charges for taking half a Valium. Or like the grieving woman in Nebraska who, already devastated by a bleak diagnosis at 22 weeks, was forced to continue an unviable and dangerous pregnancy because of a new "fetal pain" law.
- The New Young Faces of the Anti-Abortion Movement Lila Rose and Kristan Hawkins use new tactics such as social media and "sidewalk counseling" to grow their base
- No más bebés = No more babies "The story of Mexican immigrant women who were pushed into sterilization while giving birth at L.A. County hospital. Alongside intrepid young Chicana/o lawyers and a whistle-blowing doctor, the mothers stood up to powerful institutions in the name of justice"
- Citizen Ruth Ruth Stoops is pregnant, confused and in trouble with the law for the umpteenth time. But it doesn't stop there. She soon becomes the unwitting object of a wacky tug-of-war that erupts when pro-lifers square off with pro-choicers and everyone goes to ridiculous extremes trying to claim her as a national symbol for their cause.
- Jane: An Abortion Service: The Underground Abortion Service This fascinating political look at a little-known chapter in women's history tells the story of "Jane", the Chicago-based women's health group who performed nearly 12,000 safe illegal abortions between 1969 and 1973 with no formal medical training. As Jane members describe finding feminism and clients describe finding Jane, archival footage and recreations mingle to depict how the repression of the early sixties and social movements of the late sixties influenced this unique group. Both vital knowledge and meditation on the process of empowerment, this documentary showcases the importance of preserving women's knowledge in the face of revisionist history. Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.
- Abortion: Stories Women Tell Though the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade protected a woman’s right to choose, abortion remains one of the most divisive issues in America today. In the last several years, many states have imposed restrictions on access to abortion, including Missouri, where only one abortion clinic remains open in the entire state, and where patients and their doctors must navigate a 72-hour waiting period. In ABORTION: STORIES WOMEN TELL, awarding-winning director (and Missouri native) Tracy Droz Tragos sheds new light on this contentious issue, focusing not on the debate, but rather on women themselves. Centering on the Hope Clinic for Women (just across the Missouri state line in Granite City, Illinois), the film profiles women struggling with unplanned pregnancies, providers who show up at the clinic to give medical care, and activists hoping to sway decisions and lives, offering an intimate window into the lives of women involved in the abortion issue, whose experiences are by turns heartbreaking and tender or bleak and frightening. On whichever side of the issue they fall, choices are made based on individual circumstances and beliefs, and the film underscores the strength and capacity of women to overcome and persevere through complicated and unexpected circumstances.
- The Handmaid's Tale. Season 1 A religion-based autocracy has taken over most of the United States, renaming the country Gilead. In this country women are second-class citizens. Anyone trying to escape is punished. One such person is June, who is captured while trying to escape with her husband and child and is sentenced to be a handmaid, bearing children for childless government officials. As a handmaid, June is renamed Offred. This is her story.
