This week, we are looking at the topic of abortion. In class on tuesday, we watched a film. That was more about current abortion now. It was looking at abortion in states that had begun to legislate abortion restrictions. Today, we are going to go back in time a little bit. We will give historical context. We will do a historical overview of the topic of abortion. We will start nationally, then we are going to look at california specifically. Specifically on the topics of specialized abortion or abortion specialists and decriminalization. Then we will go back to the National Context to look at roe v. Wade and the legislation that has happened since in more recent years. If you recall from around week one or two, we had a brief introduction to the topic of abortion in the colonial period. We talked about the graph spinner and her abortion in the 1740s. We had a very brief introduction to it. Today, we are going to pick up around the time of the comstock act. Does everyone remember it fr
History of reproductive rights and justice starting from the 19th century to the present. Its also something thats in some ways very hard to lecture about now because its i as as professor lawson said in one of the main historians of this stuff, and im also living through it with all of you. So its a strange time to be discussing this as■z history whn its also very much real life. So i think now often when we think of reproductive rights and we think of them in the context of criminalization and criminal laws, but thats a relatively recent phenomenon. So if you go back far enough and theres a dispute about this that was reflected by the supreme in the Supreme Courts decision in 2022 in dobbs versus jackson, Womens Health organization, the majority led by Justice Samuel alito suggested that in the United States to some degree, another abortion had always been a crime. Any point in pregnancy, he might have said or might have believed something similar about contraception. But the reali
A little bit about your journey as a physician. So you received your m. D. From harvard medical school. You then completed a residency in internal medicine at mount sinai, and youre now a medical oncologist at memorial sloan. But you received your b. A. In history and specifically the history of science. And so i was wondering if you could talk a little about your academic journey and how your undergraduate interest in history sort of has shaped your medical career. Right. Well, i was really fortunate as an undergraduate, harvard, they offered this incredible concentration on this major that allowed us not to have to choose between science and humanities, because i always knew i had an interest in medicine. But really the ability to combine the reality that we know, which is that science and medicine do not exist in a vacuum and that its inextricably linked to culture, politics, religion. And for me, i loved history. I loved old books. I loved the context of who and why we are, the way
So this is obviously more material than i can cover in an. So this is a snapshot of the history of reproductive rights and justice starting from the 19th century to the present. Its also something thats in some ways very hard to lecture about now because its i as as professor lawson said in one of the main historians of this stuff, and im also living through it with all of you. So its a strange time to be discussing this as history when its also very much real life. So i think now often when we think of reproductive rights and we think of them in the context of criminalization and criminal laws, but thats a relatively recent phenomenon. So if you go back far enough and theres a dispute about this that was reflected by the supreme in thes decision in 2022 in dobbs versus jackson, Womens Health organization, the majority led by Justice Samuel alito suggested that in the United States to some degree, another abortion had always been a crime. Any point in pregnancy, he might have said or m
History of reproductive rights and justice starting from the 19th century to the present. Its about now because its i as professor lawson said in one of the main historians of this stuff, and im also living through it with all of you. So its a strange time to be discussing this as history when its also very much real life. So i think now often when we think of reproductive rights and we think of them in the context of criminalization and criminal laws, but thats a relatively recent phenomenon. So if you go back far enough and theres a dispute about this that was reflected by the supreme in the Supreme Courts decision in 2022 in dobbs versus jackson, Womens Health organization, the majority led by Justice Samuel alito suggested that in the United States to some degree, another abortion had always been a crime. Any point in pregnancy, he might have said or might have believed something similar about contraception. But the reality was that for much of ited states history, either passing o