HISTORIOGRAPHY on Female Reproductive Rights in the US

Running Head : Historiography on Female Reproductive Rights in the US

Historiography on Female Reproductive Rights in the US

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Institution Name At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth American society underwent more fast and fundamental socioeconomic changes than at any time in its history . The industrialization of the country brought with it changes in all sphere of life--changes which , at times , appeared to pressure "civilization " as people then knew it . In the middle of those changes , the family and home--the woman 's sphere--became

a retreat from the moral , social , and cultural concession of the world . But if the home were to remain that haven , it would mean that women would have to persist to play the role usually assigned to them . That continuity is precisely what the feminists opposed . And birth control , perhaps more than any other matter , symbolized that opposition .Prior to the advent of responsible birth control measures , women could not dependably set limits on reproduction . The majority repeated the cycle of conception , gestation , childbirth , and postpartum recovery until death or loss of the capability to reproduce . As America moved from an agricultural to an industrial society and men 's work took them out of the home and into the factory , women were left to care for the children alone and to contract with problems linked with reproduction The cost in lives , time , physical and emotional energy , and lost prospects informed Elizabeth Cady Stanton 's statements on self-sovereignty , forged powerful bonds amongst women , and set fire to the movement for birth control

Antifeminists believed that birth control would obliterate the family nurture the "selfish impulse " of women who sought high social status encourage moral laxity , interrupt the "natural " of things legitimize abortion (which they believed was murder , and intimidate "racial suicide " since numerous women who sought birth control were from the upper and middle classes . There was a dread that the population of the "decent " classes would diminish while that of the "rabble " that had lately migrated from eastern and southern Europe would increase Hence , antifeminists waged a dynamic effort to limit distribution of birth control information , to support the passage of laws that criminalized this dissemination , and , most significantly , to make the definition of this "criminal " action vague enough to authorize arbitrary arrest and punishment

Feminists saw birth control as a means to alleviate the social problems of drunkenness , child and wife abuse , and women 's dependence on men Most important , they sought to reinstate to women control of their bodies--a first and essential step toward self-determination self-respect , and personal accomplishment . The battle soon was joined Margaret Sanger , the founder of the birth control movement in the United States , gives us a sense of that battle and the stakes concerned

So great is the skill , so powerful the drug , of the abortionists , paid to murder mankind within the womb ' 1

The cultural fission formed by the controversy over birth control and abortion , as Juvenal 's satiric mention above indicates...