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James C. Mohr
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Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy (Galaxy Books)

by James C. Mohr (Author)
4.9 4.9 out of 5 stars 20 ratings
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Chronicles the incidence of abortion in nineteenthand twentieth-century America and the causes and processes of the profound social change which resulted, by 1900, in the nearly universal legal proscription of abortion
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  1. ISBN-10
    0195026160
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0195026160
  3. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  4. Publication date
    September 20, 1979
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    8.5 x 5.44 x 0.81 inches
  7. Print length
    331 pages
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A fascinating book which sets to rest a number of preconceptions on the subject. Easy to read and yet hard-hitting."--Marlette Rebhorn, Austin Community College

"Should be an eye-opener to those who think that religious objections were at the root of anti-abortion legislation and equally to those who think that abortion has been a matter of life and death."--Carl N. Degler, Stanford University

"A superb example of the way history can inform a current contentious controversy."--Journal of American History

"Mohr makes it abundantly clear that Supreme Court decisions of the 1970s were not a modern weakening of moral standards but a return to what Americans believed and practiced a hundred years ago."--The Christian Century

"An altogether lucid review of American abortion policy in the 19th century."--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

"The history of how abortion came to be banned and how women lost...rights previously thought to be natural and inherent over their own bodies is a fascinating and infuriating one."--Chicago Tribune

From the Back Cover

'The history of how abortion came to be banned and how women lost--for the century between approximately 1870 and 1970--rights previously thought to be natural and inherent over their own bodies is a fascinating and infuriating one.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (September 20, 1979)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 331 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0195026160
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0195026160
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1760L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 5.44 x 0.81 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.9 4.9 out of 5 stars 20 ratings

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James C. Mohr

James C. Mohr

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Customer reviews

4.9 out of 5 stars
4.9 out of 5
20 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Tache Noire
5.0 out of 5 stars Scholarly and Thorough; filled with surprising information
Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2022
Verified Purchase
Constitutional originalists (such as the conservative block on our current Supreme Court) would be rocked back on their heels to read Chapter One of this book. Between 1800 and 1812, abortions during the first half of pregnancy “before quickening” were fully legal and were common in America. British Common Law was the basis. In fact, during subsequent decades there was “an epidemic” of early abortions among married white Protestant women, buoyed by lax medical regulations and a lack of reliable birth control. It was the only way parents could space out children during the 1840s and 1850s. Before “quickening” the medical diagnosis could only be proved as “obstructed menses”, a different and possibly dangerous situation that old-fashioned doctors frequently treated successfully with various herbal remedies.

The drive to make abortion illegal from the moment of conception came from the new, scientific regular physicians and the AMA, who launched a moral crusade after the Civil War against the common and widely tolerated method of family planning. Religious leaders failed to back them up because the crusade was so unpopular.

There was a strong bigoted motive too. Protestant physicians were worried that the falling birth rates for white Protestant Americans meant that the country would be overwhelmed with immigrant Catholics, who did not allow abortion and had larger families.

We can only be amazed at the blindness of the legal scholars working in Justice Alito’s office, cherry-picking bizarre precedent from 17th century, while ignoring a mountain of contrary precedent clearly presented in this book.

Author Mohr imagined that Roe would settle the issue because it swung America back toward our original tolerant approach. This book should have been required reading for all the justices. However it is human nature to ignore things you don’t want to hear.
6 people found this helpful
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P. L. Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars The Facts, Ma'am, Just the Facts
Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2016
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I bought this book as a gift to a friend doing research into abortion in our culture. I had purchased a copy years ago as background for a presentation I was doing at my Alma Mater. the book is simply straightforward and frankly historical. It does not toot a horn nor is it ideological. I HIGHLY recommend this book for any person wanting to learn more about how abortion has traditionally been viewed and how terminations were procured and how the public saw abortion as an issue --- whatever your beliefs or ideology. FACTS never hurt anybody, and whatever the case you feel inspired to make this book will keep you firmly grounded and will clarify your position for yourself and for others.
10 people found this helpful
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Valerie K. Thomas
5.0 out of 5 stars Great non-technical, "non-partisan" read. This book needs 6 stars.
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2012
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How did legal access to abortion become THE domestic political/cultural issue that decides elections in the USA? James C. Mohr's book, Abortion in America, traces the societal and political forces that over the course of the 19th century shifted the practice of abortion from broadly legal under the Common Law and widely accepted and practiced (if not openly spoken of), to broadly illegal in most US states and less socially accepted (but no less widely practiced than it ever was). This is a sensitive, "non-partisan" historical treatment of a topic that it can be difficult to discuss in modern America.
3 people found this helpful
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Peter Diamond
5.0 out of 5 stars fast shipping, book in great shape - very satisfied. Thanks -
Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2019
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Book shipped very quickly, good packaging, in great shape, even better than described at a good price.
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Dora A. Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars Readable, covers a lot of history, short on understanding of social structure in social change
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2022
This may be the best book on abortion on the market, there being another one that looks good that I've yet to receive in the mail; it could be as good or better.

That isn't saying much. Books on the history of abortion in the U.S. are abysmal.

I read it in two days, which is a first in awhile. An excellent history book took me a month. The book is readable, and it keeps you reading. There were large parts of the latter chapters that one doesn't need in that sort of detail, unless you're a law student, and I skipped over a lot. This book would be an excellent resource for a law student writing a law review article on the subject.

The book clearly and in considerable detail explains the early history of abortion in this country up to 1900. After that it rather falls apart and gets bogged in detail. Fortunately the history of abortion before 1900 is what is least well understood in this country, and what I wanted to learn about.

There are annoying shortcomings where the author fails. The author is a good historian but has zero grasp of structural problems in society as a driving force of social change. One key question I wanted answered was if, how and/or why did physicians drive anti-abortion legislation in the 19th century. Mohr shows us in some detail that they did, but, something that strange requires the WHY part to be convincing. He falls part on the why. He argues that historians simply don't understand why physicians did that. It gets stranger when he informs us that FEMINISTS also lobbied for legislation against abortion, specifically to save the anglo-Saxon race, and again it isn't convincing.

Thirty years ago, I took a course in the history of women at university, that focused on how middle and upperclass women negotiated responses to oppressive 19th century social changes in ways that met immediate goals but backed them into corners. Some review and research soon revealed why physicians, mostly Anglo-Saxon and well educated, and middle class feminists, lobbied against abortion, which society had freely allowed until mid pregnancy and few in this country questioned. The development of Capitalism and then of a middle class, separated work from the home, and isolated middle class women at home with little to do beyond housework, which didn't much occupy prosperous women even then. This stripped them of their economic involvement in the household living and its attendant respect, self esteem, and public involvement outside of the home. To preserve some status, respect and self esteem middle class women themselves helped develop the "Cult of womanhood". Victorian middle class male dominated institutions happily adopted the Cult of womanhood. In the minds of upper middle class, almost entirely Anglo-Saxon physicians, abortion violated it. So it was unnatural. This was added to the observation heatedly objected to by both physicians and suffragettes, that immigrants, especially Catholics, were in danger of taking over the country that rightly belonged to Anglo-Saxons because they wouldn't have abortions and had high birth rates, while middle class birth rates had fallen through the floor, for reasons poorly understood but blamed on abortion. And, doctors wanted other health practitioners driven from practice, which of course would not have led them to lobby for flat out bans on abortion if that alone had been their motive. As Mohr tells us, public attitudes toward abortion changed only after laws were passed making it a felony, and probably also because of the development of effective methods of contraception. Suffragettes were middle class women, and they did not wish to challenge anything that maintained a woman's confinement to home and role as a homemaker; that was the highest status role available to any woman. The only social problems that bothered them, like marital rape, on which they blamed middle class abortions, they believed would be magically solved by giving women the vote. It was the continued loss of any vital role or social involvement of middle class women in the mid 20th century, coupled with the fact that noone else's lives resembled that of the Cult of the Woman, that finally led to modern feminism a hundred years later.

Mohr questions why doctors of the 1960s suddenly favored loosening laws on abortion, a question he cannot answer. He does not grasp that of course, society changed. He never goes into the modern anti-abortion movement at all. Finally, he predicts the future. It is clear that abortion policy in the United States will now be decided at the federal level!

In short, Mohr writes an excellent history with the details all there, except, withotu understanding and being able to clearly explain the structural changes in the economy and the status of women that drove the doctors' and suffragettes' otherwise inexplicable behavior, the book just fails to be convincing, and like another well recommended history of abortion I recently read and reviewed, it leaves one convinced that must have been some preexisting deep underlying sentiment against abortion.

As a matter of fact there was not some preexisting deep underlying sentiment against abortion; it was accepted and widely practiced through most of the 19th century. As another history which is even less convincing tells us, even Roman Catholicism did not condemn abortion before "quickening" until a recent point in time.
3 people found this helpful
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Samuel
5.0 out of 5 stars Important Book
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2019
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Insightful and important to get an understanding of the current issues in a historic context. Worth finding and reading.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2016
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It was useful during my college investigation.
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Michael Dibella
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2017
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Well documented review
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