Abortion Stories: American Literature Before Roe V. Wade

A one-of-a-kind, intersectional volume of abortion representation in American literature before Roe v. Wade that compellingly proclaims: when abortion is illegal, women's lives are always more precarious and limited A Penguin Classic One of Ms. Magazine's Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2025 Abortion Stories is the first volume of its kind to bring together a diverse collection of writings on abortion published before 1973, when Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in every American state. These stories, poems, essays, and memoirs reflect a range of representations and responses to abortion during this era, but when read together, they demonstrate how when abortion is illegal, women's lives are always more precarious and limited. In this volume, you will read stories that will elucidate and enrich a view of abortion as one element of human experience--woven into stories of love and death and medicine and motherhood and enslavement and emancipation. Featuring luminaries like Langston