During the past few months, several states have passed increasingly restrictive laws dealing with women’s reproductive rights, including access to abortion. This week, we’ve gathered a selection of pieces about the steady erosion of these rights across the country. Charles Bethea reports on a standoff between anti-abortion protesters and clinic volunteers at the last abortion clinic operating in Montgomery, Alabama. In “To Have and To Hold,” Jill Lepore recounts the case of Griswold v. Connecticut and examines the history of the Supreme Court’s rulings on the right to privacy. Margaret Talbot explores how new laws are making it more difficult to receive access to safe abortions. In “Daughters of Texas,” Jeffrey Toobin writes about the fight to defend reproductive rights and funding for Planned Parenthood in the Texas legislature. Kelefa Sanneh talks to the head of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life version of EMILY’s List. Finally, in “They Were Eleven,” published in 1930, Helena Huntington Smith profiles the birth-control activist Margaret Sanger, who was one of the founders of Planned Parenthood. These pieces capture the difficult choices regarding reproductive health that often confront families—and the ever-expanding role of government in the lives of women across America.
—David Remnick
“Escorts”
“A patient headed for the abortion clinic door, holding a male companion’s hand. Her face was hidden beneath a beach umbrella with ‘Title 13A § 13A-11-8,’ Alabama’s legal code for harassment, handwritten across it.”
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“To Have and to Hold”
“That sex and marriage can be separated from reproduction is fundamental to both the reproductive-rights and gay-rights movements, and to their legal claims.”
“Obstacle Course”
“Since the nineteen-nineties, states have enacted hundreds of new restrictions on the constitutional right to abortion, from obligatory waiting periods and mandated state counselling to limits on insurance funding.”
“The Intensity Gap”
“For politicians seeking to limit abortion, Marjoie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, is a valuable link to the grass roots of pro-life activism—a committed activist who understands the art of messaging.”
“Daughters of Texas”
“Since the Republican gains in the 2010 midterm elections, abortion rights—and Planned Parenthood itself—have been under siege in the states.”
“They Were Eleven”
“In 1923, Margaret Sanger started the first contraceptive clinic in America, with doctors in charge, and in seven years some eighteen thousand women have been advised there.”