When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973 by Leslie J. Reagan (University of California Press)

When Abortion was a Crime" by Leslie Reagan. Without a doubt one of the best books I have read recently, if you are as passionate about women's reproductive rights as I am and wonder about what it was like in the good old days before women's had rights to control their own bodies. I didn't know this book even existed until I was watching Rachel Maddow one night and the author was on her program discussing a paperback copy that had recently been released (I don't care for paperback unless I don't have a choice). So I bought a used hard copy of the book that had originally been in a Library in Illinois. That came in good enough condition and no major flaws in it. So far, I have had good luck buying used ones. Most have come in good condition. Sometimes only a few highlighted phrases here and there. But, that's immaterial. I can overlook it.

I was raised in the 50's when abortion was illegal. I was raised in a small Midwestern coal mining town in a super religious family and had no idea such a thing as abortion even existed in those days. So if I had gotten pregnant I was just out of luck. That's how painfully ignorant a lot of we teenagers were in those days. It's a day and age I have no desire whatsoever to return to. Or to see my Granddaughters be forced to return too. It wasn't that great of a period in this country. This country was awash in racism, sexism was the order of the day too and what one viewed on television was mindless drivel designed for 4 year olds. I married when I was 17 and my mother stumbled through a description of what was going to happen on my wedding night. But, I didn't get a vivid enough description to have clue what to expect. That's just how dumb and uninformed a lot of girls like myself were. I am really surprised I didn't get into trouble when I was young, not knowing anymore than I did.

I have always wondered about the issue of illegal abortion when I grew a older and wondered what it was like in the days before Roe. I knew next to nothing about the era. Just whispers I had heard from other people and had read about in passing. Something a lot of us hope our daughters and Granddaughter will never be forced to return too. But, it is looking like Christian zealots are going to chip away at Roe v Wade until it is just a shell of a law. Because the electorate keeps making the mistake of voting the type of people in office who are catering to these religious zealots. People often take their freedoms for granted until after they have been taken away. They don't comprehend when these people get through taking away women's rights, they will start in on African American's, Hispanic's and anyone else who doesn't live up to their immoral beliefs. And they will drag us kicking and screaming back to the dark ages of back alley abortions. But, they won't stop the practice. It's just going to cost them dearly in new tax dollars to add new law enforcement personnel, new judges to already over burdened court system, to build prisons to house all the new criminals in. But, it won't stop the practice. I don't know how many of them are intelligent enough to have looked at it that way. But, morality laws do not work and have never worked. It just brings on a worse society. They should have learned that for a few of their other misadventures like prohibition.

This book covers most aspects of what it was like before Roe and should be required reading for anyone interested in women's personal freedoms. It was an enlightening book.