Abortion Pills: Us History and Politics

This is the first book to offer a comprehensive history of abortion pills in the United States. Public intellectual and lawyer Carrie N. Baker shows how courageous activists waged a decades-long campaign to establish, expand, and maintain access to abortion pills. Weaving their voices throughout her book, Baker recounts both dramatic and everyday acts of their resistance. These activists battled anti-abortion forces, overly cautious policymakers, medical gatekeepers, and fearful allies in their four-decade-long fight to free abortion pills. In post-Roe America, abortion pills are currently playing a critically important role in providing safe abortion access to tens of thousands of people living in states that now ban and restrict abortion. Understanding this struggle will help to ensure continued access into the future.

Carrie N. Baker is the Sylvia Dlugasch Professor of American Studies and the Chair of the Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College. She has written four previous books and scores of peer-reviewed scholarly articles on gender, law and social movements for women’s rights. She is a regular writer and contributing editor at Ms. magazine, covering abortion politics, sexual harassment, and the Equal Rights Amendment.