A Miscarriage of Justice

By Cassia Roth,

Book cover of A Miscarriage of Justice: Women's Reproductive Lives and the Law in Early Twentieth-Century Brazil

Book description

A Miscarriage of Justice examines women's reproductive health in relation to legal and medical policy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After the abolition of slavery in 1888 and the onset of republicanism in 1889, women's reproductive capabilities-their ability to conceive and raise future citizens and laborers-became critical to the expansion…

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Why read it?

1 author picked A Miscarriage of Justice as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Cassia Ross captivatingly conveys the stories of the individual women and girls, most of them financially desperate, whom the modern Brazilian state’s policing of women’s reproduction victimized.

Her book studies women’s reproductive health in Rio de Janeiro in the aftermath of the abolition of slavery (1888) and the dissolution of the country’s monarchy (1889). She argues that in this period, women’s reproductive capabilities became crucial to the expanding Brazilian state while the latter increasingly criminalized fertility control. 

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