2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

The ongoing attack on Planned Parenthood in the United States is a reminder that abortion access cannot be taken for granted. It also highlights the need for women’s health scholars to investigate the historical antecedents to restricted abortion access. This lightning session on reproductive rights examines the implementation of abortion barriers in Canada, the United States, and Ireland in the late twentieth century. From manipulating clinic building codes in the United States to exploiting the Church-state coalition in Ireland, anti-abortion activists successfully created tremendous legal and extralegal barriers for women attempting to terminate their pregnancies. While the Right to Life movement is often associated with violence and radicalism in the media, this panel investigates the elements of the movement that appealed to ordinary citizens and sustained its success over several decades. The panel examines key
issues, including nurses’ conscientious objections to performing abortions, the tension between abortion and disability rights, the impact of infertility and adoption on personal opposition to abortion, and the construction of abortion trauma. Furthermore, panelists demonstrate how organization leaders capitalized on this increasing opposition and created extralegal obstacles in medical clinics and hospitals. This interdisciplinary session examines the issue from legal, political, historical, architectural, and sociological perspectives to highlight the lasting consequences of these barriers.