For Women’s History Month, A Reproductive Rights Reading List

Women’s History Month lands this year smack in the middle of the biggest antifeminist backlash since Norman Mailer insulted Germaine Greer on the stage at Town Hall in 1971. The literary grandfather of the “manosphere,” Mailer bellowed the ideas finding traction in today’s pronatalist movement—keep women at home, pregnant, and preferably as sexy as possible. We can assume that Mailer would be just as dismissive of the gold medal winning Olympic women’s hockey team as our president. Another backlash player is the Tradwife movement with its viral vibe of birthing lots of babies with no pain killers, making bread from scratch, and selling homespun merch on Instagram. But this has the feel of a trend that has come, and inevitably will go.

Nestled like a malignant tumor alongside these life choice women’s rights regressions lies a true life-and-death crisis facing women today—abortion bans. Ever since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, 19 states have completely or nearly banned abortion, creating a legal framework that instantly rendered life-threatening the level of reproductive healthcare care available to 43-percent of women of childbearing age in this country.

In that vein, here are eleven books that I recommend reading this month. They were published on or after 2024, and most, but not all, cover different aspects of the reproductive rights wars. I have listed them alphabetically by author’s last names.

*

Unbearable: Five Women and the Perils of Pregnancy in America by Irin Carmon

In her exploration of what it takes to give birth in America today, New York magazine writer and co-author of The Notorious RBG, tells the intimate story of five pregnant women who live in different states, and the struggles they endure (some worse than others depending on socioeconomics and geography) to navigate often dangerous and inhumane reproductive care system.

The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America by Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer

Two tenacious New York Times investigative reporters chronicle the inside story of the decades-long legal and political strategy conservative Christian lawyers and lobbyists devised to reverse 49 years of abortion-rights precedent. This is the seminal “who dun it” behind the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.

The Women’s Revolution: How We Changed Your Life by Muriel Fox

A rare first-hand account of the formation of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966 and its evolution over the next two decades by one of the last living founders of NOW. Muriel Fox was an insider who knew all of the players, and her candid descriptions of the events and personalities that made history (yes, Betty Friedan was a monster, but a brilliant one) makes for a dramatic story.

The Icon & The Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry that Brought Birth Control to America by Stephanie Gorton

A gripping double biography of the two foremothers of the American birth control movement. Gorton skillfully depicts the grueling decades-long struggle of Sanger (the icon, in this telling) and Dennett (the idealist) to make birth control available and legal, as well as their interpersonal competition for power and influence.

Access: Inside the Abortion Underground and the Sixty-Year Battle for Reproductive Freedom by Rebecca Grant

A sweeping history of abortion in America and the development of the abortion drug mifepristone and the heroic underground efforts in Argentina, Mexico, Ireland, and ultimately America to get it into the hands of women in need.

Killers of Roe: My Investigation into the Mysterious Death of Abortion Rights by Amy Littlefield

Getting to the bottom of why we lost Roe, is Littlefield’s mission in this important and suspenseful book. Littlefield, a veteran reporter, travels the country interviewing the religious grass roots organizers—many of whom are lost to history—who dedicated their lives to successfully dismantling reproductive rights for women.

A Termination by Honor Moore

A searingly intimate, lyrically written memoir chronically Moore’s abortion in 1969 at the age of 23. The celebrated poet and memoirist, delves into the agonies of her decision and describes the emerging women’s liberation movement, of which Moore would soon become a participant.

Winning the Earthquake: How Jeannette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become the First Woman in Congress by Lorissa Rinehart

The first full biography of the first woman elected to Congress, Jeannette Rankin’s life spanned most of the 20th Century’s big events—the long campaign for women’s suffrage, three major wars, and the second wave feminist movement. Rankin’s life-long commitment to social justice and equality is an inspiration especially in this time when politicians who speak their minds are few and far between.

Liberating Abortion: Claiming Our History, Sharing Our Stories, and Building the Reproductive Future We Deserve by Renee Bracey Sherman and Regina Mahone

A much needed take on abortion history, activism, and lived experience for women of color, whose significant roles are often erased from history. Sherman and Mahone interview dozens of Black and Brown women who were on the front lines of the abortion battles many years before Roe. Their interviews with two Black women members of the underground Abortion Counseling Service in Chicago—code named Jane—is particularly interesting.

A More Perfect Party: The Night Shirley Chisholm and Diahann Carroll Reshaped Politics by Juanita Tolliver

One night in 1972 in Beverly Hills the political and Hollywood A-list gathered at actress Diahann Carrol’s house to celebrate Shirley Chisholm’s presidential candidacy. Juanita Tolliver deconstructs this iconic event, capturing the power and lasting significance of the evening and Chisholm’s presidential run.

Abortion Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win by Jessica Valenti

Famous in feminist circles for her Abortion Every Day Substack, which forensically chronicles how reproductive rights are being curtailed law-by-law, state-by-state, Valenti lays out the political and legal landscape of post-Roe America in this short, succinct book.

__________________________________

The Movement: How Women’s Liberation Transformed America 1963-1973 by Clara Bingham is available now in paperback from Atria/One Signal Publishers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.