Authors: Laura Eldridge
Acknowledgments
First, I want to thank Dan Simon and Seven Stories Press for understanding the enduring importance of Barbara Seaman’s work and for having confidence in my ability to carry on some small piece of it. Theresa Noll has been much more than an editor; indeed, she is the co-parent of this project, imagining it with me so many months ago and being there at every step to make sure that it became a reality. Her patience and guidance have been invaluable to me and her wisdom and enthusiasm illuminate each page. Crystal Yakacki and Ruth Weiner went above and beyond the call of duty in promoting the book and I am so grateful for their efforts and enthusiasm on this project. I would also like to thank Veronica Liu, Mary Taveras, and Caitlin Thompson for their hard work readying the book for publication.
There are many people who have been generous with their knowledge, time, and advice. For taking the time to answer my questions, guide my research, and help me understand their work, I am grateful to Cynthia Pearson, Amy Allina and the National Women’s Health Network, Judy Norsigian, Andrea Tone, Toni Weschler, Katie Singer, Leonore Teifer, Cynthia Graham, Jennifer Baumgardner, Jacques Rossouw, Susan Love, Alice Wolfson, William Parker, Gillian Sanson, Devra Davis, Susan Rako, Sybil Shainwald, Shere Hite, Susan Wood, Barbara Zuckerman, and Gillian Sanson.
For their books, which informed and inspired me during the writing process, I am grateful to Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, Lara V. Marks, Michelle Goldberg, Nelly Oudshoorn, Jane Bennett, Alexandra Pope, Dorothy Roberts, Rickie Solinger, and Karen Houppert.
I owe a great debt of gratitude to the many women who shared their personal stories. Their accounts inform and enrich this book and remind me for whom I am writing.
Lauren Porsch has been my dear friend for well over a decade, and her weekly counsel and willingness to help me find important information
strengthened this book. Her tireless efforts as a health activist continue to inspire me. Irene Xanthoudakis also generously shared her years of experience and knowledge in this field. Helen Lowery gave me an early forum to present my research and ideas, which was invaluable to the development of the project. I am lucky to have her as a friend. Marlo Dublin kindly read chapter drafts at a key moment, and Katie Walker helped with organizing interviews and provided constant enthusiasm and support. Much love and many thanks are also due to the family of choice that sustains me: Rebecca Kraut, Rachel Fisher, Molly Barry, April Timko, Stephanie Kirk, Nicole Richman, Chi Kim, Rumela Mitra, and Rob Tennant. Rabbi Lisa Grushcow, Rabbi Sari Laufer, and Emily Huber provided necessary spiritual guidance, and my Philly women’s group provided professional support.
I feel lucky each day to be a part of the Weinberg family. Beth, Sheldon, Josh, Marnie, and Zachary Weinberg are always in my heart, and thanks and love is due as well to Lisa, Stu, and Michelle Alperin and Stephanie and Eric Biderman. Ray Josell-Metz is not only a fantastic grandmother and constant cheerleader, but a marvelous friend.
The Seaman family has been a tremendous source of love and support since the death of my dear friend Barbara. Noah, Elana, and Shira Seaman are like family to me, and I feel lucky to have them in my life.
This book, quite simply, would not have happened without the love, interest, and faith of the Eldridge family. During its writing, my grandfather, Paul W. Eldridge Sr., passed away, and his loss is a constant sorrow. Everyone who met Gea was impressed by his humor and charm, and it was from him that I learned how to tell stories. My brothers David, Reed, and Peter are always my best friends, and I would not know what to do without them. David in particular has been a huge help with this book, offering his knowledge and research assistance and reading chapter drafts. My parents, Susan and Paul, make my work possible. They provide an amazing model of parenting, and although they don’t always agree with my conclusions, they teach me how to be a person of conviction and conscience.
Finally, I must say thank you to my husband, Jeremy Weinberg. Jeremy basically acted as a research assistant for this book despite the fact that he was amply occupied finishing his law degree. He was willing to run to the library or find an article or read a chapter, even with only a small amount
of advance notice. Jeremy always put my work first, and for this I don’t know how to thank him. He is also a brave companion in navigating the sometimes-convoluted world of contraceptive decision making. His kindness, intelligence, and good humor enrich my life, and I feel lucky every day that he is my partner.
The work of Barbara Seaman continues to impact and inform women’s health. I was fortunate to learn from her over the course of ten years. While I have tried in this project to honor her work, I want to pay tribute here to Barbara as a person. There is not a day that I don’t think about her and miss her. A picture of Barbara and me taken in 2007 sits over my computer, and I hear her voice still advising, correcting, encouraging, and chiding as I write. In the photo we are laughing, as we did so often, and I am reminded of the countless conversations we used to have in which she treated me as an equal in our work despite the fact that she was clearly the senior partner. I was one of many, many young women who Barbara not only inspired, but helped in tangible ways to begin careers as health writers and activists. In our words and work, as well as in the countless changes in women’s lives that she made real, her legacy continues. Still, most days, I don’t know how we continue without her.
Notes
Introduction
1.
Jael Silliman, Marlene Gerber Fried, Loretta Ross, and Elena R. Gutierrez,
Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice
(Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2004), 11.
2.
Bonnie Scott Jones and Michelle Movahed, “Lesson One: Your Gender Is Your Destiny—The Constitutionality of Teaching Sex Stereotypes in Abstinence-Only Programs,” American Constitution Society for Law and Policy issue brief, September 10, 2008,
http://www.acslaw.org/node/7096
.
Chapter One: Past Tense
1.
Elizabeth B. Councell, “Contraception in the Prepill Era,”
Contraception
59, no. 1 (January 1999): 7S-10S.
2.
Bernard Asbell,
The Pill: A Biography of the Drug That Changed the World
(New York: Random House, 1995).
3.
Councell, “Contraception,” 7S.
4.
Aine Collier,
The Humble Little Condom: A History
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007), 11.
5.
Ibid., 11–32.
6.
Angus McLaren,
A History of Contraception: From Antiquity to the Present Day
(Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1990).
7.
Eric Chevallier,
The Condom: Three Thousand Years of Safer Sex
(London: Puffin, 1995).
8.
John M. Riddle,
Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992). See also, by the same author,
Eve’s Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).
9.
Ghislaine Lawrence, “Condoms and Contraception: Tools of the Trade,”
Lancet
360, no. 9327 (July 13, 2002): 178.
10.
Andrea Tone,
Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America
(New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 51.
11.
Ibid.
12.
Connell, “Contraception,” 7s.
13.
Tone,
Devices and Desires
, 56.
14.
Ibid.
15.
Ibid., 54.
16.
Ibid., 55.
17.
Leslie J. Reagan, “ ‘About to Meet Her Maker’: Women, Doctors, Dying Declarations, and the State’s Investigation of Abortion, Chicago, 1867–1940,” in
American Sexual Histories
, ed. Elizabeth Reis, 228–45 (Malden, MA, Oxford, and Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2001).
18.
Quoted in James Reed,
From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society Since 1830
(New York: Basic Books, 1978), 16.
19.
Rickie Solinger,
Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America
(New York and London: New York University Press, 2005), 70.
20.
Ibid., 71.
21.
Anthony Comstock,
Second Annual Report of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice
(New York, 1876), 5.
22.
Comstock Law,
US Statutes at Large 17
(1873), chap. 258, 598.
23.
Tone,
Devices and Desires
, 40.
24.
Solinger,
Pregnancy and Power
, 79–83.
25.
Janet Farrell Brodie,
Contraception and Abortion in Nineteenth-Century America
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 7.
26.
“People & Events: Eugenics and Birth Control,” supplementary information provided about
The Pill
, a film that aired on the PBS program
American Experience
,
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/e_eugenics.html
.
27.
Linda Gordon,
The Moral Property of Women: A History of Birth Control Politics in America
(Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 141.
28.
Peter Neushul, “Marie C. Stopes and the Popularization of Birth Control Technology,”
Technology and Culture
39, no. 2 (April 1998): 249.
29.
Ibid., 251.
30.
Solinger,
Pregnancy and Power
, 104.
31.
Dorothy Roberts,
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty
(New York: Vintage Books, 1999), 81.
32.
Ibid., 58–59.
33.
Ibid., 88.
34.
Buck v. Bell
, 274 US 200 (1927).
35.
Tone,
Devices and Desires
, 93.
36.
Many African-American women continue to struggle with perceptions, both in and outside the black community, that contraceptives and other reproductive services—and the organizations that provide them—are in the service of racist agendas. These toxic ideas prevent many women from receiving care and further complicate the issue of reproductive health disparities between black women and their white counterparts. In early 2010, an anti-abortion group put up dozens of billboards in metropolitan Atlanta proclaiming that black babies are “an endangered species,” in reference to the higher rate of abortion among black women compared to other racial and ethnic groups. See Guttmacher Institute, “No conspiracy theories needed: Higher abortion rates among women of color reflect higher rates of unintended pregnancy,” news release, August 13, 2008,
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2008/08/13/index.html
; and Shani O. Hilton, “Black Women Don’t Need Billboards,”
American Prospect
, February 24, 2010,
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=black_women_dont_need_billboards
.