In 1980s Japan, mizuko spirit attacks, or hauntings by the spirits of aborted fetuses, were on the rise among middle school and high school girls. Listen to one Japanese teen’s testimonial: “You probably won’t believe it, but mizuko spirit attacks are really frightful. Last summer, I got knocked up. I Read more…
Birth control and abortion are constant flash points in contemporary politics, and they’re often described as signs of a rapidly changing society. But women have always had ways (though not always quite as effective) to control family size through contraception, and early American women were no exception. Understanding the role Read more…
Shannon Withycombe’s Lost: Miscarriage in Nineteenth-Century America puts miscarriage at the center of the study of nineteenth-century science, medicine, and women’s experience with their reproductive bodies. You may be surprised by the range of responses to pregnancy loss, motherhood, and reproduction in the 19th century. Listen, download, watch on YouTube, Read more…
In the third episode in our series on women’s reproductive rights in America, Jane Roe & the Pill, we finally get to two of the most important turning points in our story: the invention of the hormonal birth control pill, and the Roe v. Wade case in 1973. The mid Read more…
On September 21, 1905, a suitcase floated to the water’s surface in Winthrop Harbor, a shallow six-foot deep man-made channel, about three miles north of Boston Harbor. Stuffed inside the seemingly innocuous case was the torso of a “young and beautifully formed woman” whose intestines and stomach had been removed, Read more…
Sarah and Elizabeth discuss methods of family limitation in Early America. Just in case you need some tips.
Averill and Marissa discuss abortion and birth control in 20th century Japan and Germany.
Marissa and Averill discuss the wild, weird, and sometimes dangerous methods of family limitation in the pre-modern world.