Abortion Stories: American Literature Before Roe v. Wade

by Karen Weingarten (Introduction), Renee Bracey Sherman (afterword), Rebecca Traister (foreword)

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

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 Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Edgar Allan Poe, Lucile Clifton, Eugene O' Neill, and Shirley Chisholm, as well as rare firsthand accounts of abortion providers and seekers, this reproductive justice-minded collection brings together diverse representations of abortion to show how access to abortion is often race and class dependent, and demonstrates how the repercussions of an illegal abortion also vary depending on such factors. The need and desire to have an abortion goes back centuries, and these literary representations of abortion before Roe compellingly argue for the necessity of legal and accessible abortion. Edited and introduced by Karen Weingarten, Abortion Stories features a foreword by Rebecca Traister and an afterword by Renee Bracey Sherman.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Classics, Short Stories, Essays, Social Justice, Politics

240 pages, Paperback

First published March 4, 2025

Reviews

[Antony Monir · Rating 4 out of 5]

“No matter what the courts do about our laws, there will always be abortions. The only difference is whether the abortions will be done safely and legally in a hospital or clinic, or in the degrading and dangerous underworld, where a woman slaps down the money in advance in some abortionist’s office.” These words, published more than half a century ago still ring true today as abortion remains a topic of debate. But it really isn’t much of a debate. Statistics have shown decades ago that legalizing abortions improves the outcomes for everyone involved. Banning abortions is more about control than it is about the protection of any human life or dignity.

In the face of much effort from the conservative right towards banning abortions, it is important to remember how the world was, not so long ago. This book provides great history of the era before Roe v. Wade through literature and discourse. The introduction to the book and the short introductions to each text help show abortion’s impacts on people and how differently women view it depending on their race, class, etc. While some of the earlier texts chosen (such as the story by Poe) only obliquely reference abortion and thus feel superfluous in the context of the book, most of the later texts (especially the literature examples and Shirley Chisholm’s speech) are startling in how distant yet relatable they feel.

One thing I found strange was the punctuation editing that made reading some passages difficult (particularly the dialogue in the play “Abortion” by Eugene O’Neill). Still, the stories and writings provide a powerful narrative, helping elucidate how much suffering occurred under the illegality of abortions. Most importantly, the narratives help to show how real people viewed their condition whether they are the women seeking abortions, passive onlookers, doctors, or even writers and intellectuals of the era.

I must give credit to the editor for the judiciously chosen and compiled collection of texts in this book. I found this book randomly in the new arrivals collection at my local library and it was a great experience. I would love to see Penguin publish more books of this kind. Anthologies such as these are a wonderful tool to educate people because statistics tend to go in one ear and come out the other. Stories, on the other hand, will stick with you far longer, oftentimes popping up as a sort of heuristic for such a complex topic. Simply said, when it comes to emotional topics such as abortion, stories change minds and keep them changed. I greatly enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it as a resource for anyone who wants to learn more about the history of abortion rights or anyone trying to convince others of the importance of the Roe v. Wade ruling. Side note: this book would make for a fantastic reading resource for an abortion rights English course in college. 4/5

[Nivedita]

I learned so much from reading this and it's a great collection. At the same time reading a description from Peyton Place, published in 1956, of a fictional doctor questioning whether he was going to provide an abortion to a teenager by concluding that he was honoring life by performing an abortion: "I am protecting life, this life, the one already being lived by Selena Cross"; or a middle-aged married mother of three asking in The Atlantic Monthly after her relatively-straightforwardly obtained but illegal abortion in 1965: "Is the time coming when we can rid ourselves of one more hypocrisy, closing the gap between what we do and what we say we do?"; or Shirley Chisholm asking in 1969, "The question is not can we justify abortions but can we justify compulsory pregnancy?" made my head spin with how these exact questions and concerns are still relevant today, decades later, after an interlude of almost 50 years of nationally legal abortion. The backwardness of the modern state of reproductive rights really hit me while reading the last sentence of the Atlantic Monthly essay from literal 1965: "If it is moral to prevent conception, is it immoral to interrupt an ill-advised one?" Kind of unbelievable that this is being treated as a matter-of-fact appeal to reason when sixty years later the morality and feasibility of preventing conception itself is also beginning to be called into question.
Renee Bracey Sherman addresses this in the afterword: "As much as abortion stories are a historical marker of the economic and political times we live in, they are a reminder that history is cyclical and that over millennia we have been searching for the same liberations."

[Kiera LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

a great and insightful collection of stories! i really liked how these were organized by year going from oldest to most recent

[Prooost Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many reasons women have abortions. I'll say at the outset that any reason a woman gives for having one should be good enough for anyone. That's not the case these days. These are cruel times for just about everybody, and women and people of color top the list, as usual.

Karen Weingarten has collected writings about abortion before Roe v. Wade, some nonfiction, some fiction. There are recollections by formerly enslaved women about how they used herbs to abort fetuses so that they would not be giving birth to children who would be slaves. There is fiction by such authors as Edgar Allan Poe, Sarah Orne Jewett, Eugene O'Neill, Edith Wharton, Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, Grace Metalious, and others not as well known to me. One highlight, for me, is Shirley Chisolm's speech, "Facing the Abortion Question," given in 1969. We need more legislators like her.

This is a good companion book to The Turnaway Study, by Diana Greene Foster, which points out the differences in life outcomes between women who were able to get an abortion and women who were refused.

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great anthology spanning a wide timeframe, thoughtfully edited to include lots of different kinds of writing, from some wonderful short stories (the Langston Hughes story is probably the high point) and even a one-act play by Eugene O'Neill, to testimonials from abortionists and women who got abortions, to an essential speech about the importance of abortion access by Shirley Chisholm. This will be a great resource for educators but it's very much worth reading in general; I got a lot out of it. Glad Penguin is putting it out in this unbelievably frightening time for abortion access.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Editor Karen Weingarten has gathered a diverse anthology of fiction, memoir, poetry and testimony surrounding abortion, highlighting in her introduction how both anti-abortion laws and eugenics have been employed to uphold sexist, racist, classist and xenophobic orders. First person accounts dating back to 1699 document enslaved women’s use of abortifacient herbs as a tool of resistance, for reasons echoed in Georgia Douglas Johnson’s 1922 poem Motherhood: ‘Don’t knock on my door, little child, / I cannot let you in; / You know not what a world this is…” Early literary passages require reading between the lines, but later entries evoke moods ranging from the cold rage beneath Dorothy Parker’s Mr. Durant, the fierce defiance of Anges Smedley’s Daughter of the Earth; the devastating resignation of Genevieve Taggard’s Engaged, and the welter of emotions aroused in Tess Slesinger’s masterful Missis Flinders. Other contributors include Edith Wharton, Langston Hughes, Eugene O’Neill, William Carlos Williams, Gwendolyn Brooks and Lucille Clifton. Shirley Chisholm’s stirring 1969 speech before Congress shines a bright light on the harsh exigencies of anti-abortion laws, realities growing more familiar by the day in post-Roe America, while Renee Bracey’s afterword steers readers toward the next generation of abortion stories. Weingarten’s selections ably reflect the complex realities and feelings surrounding this often polarizing issue, while providing vital context for readers unfamiliar with the long circuitous road towards reproductive justice.

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most fascinating and illuminating books that I've read in a while.

The literature decisions were fantastic. The introductions were informative and tied everything together in helpful ways.

I appreciated that there was literature from a wide span of time and from multiple different perspectives. Many of these stories are going to turn around in my brain for quite a while, I'm sure.

There's been no more relevant time to read these excerpts, poems, and short stories. Abortion IS healthcare and bodily autonomy should be a large part of the foundation of any decent society.

Even when illegal, people find a way to control their fertility, as they should be legally allowed to do.

I'm a parent 4x over because I wanted to have several children and parenting is hard enough when it's a thing you truly wish to do and are capable of doing.

Nobody should be forced to have children. NOBODY. It's not good for the person who's forced into it and it's not good for the resulting child(ren) either.

These stories make one thing abundantly clear: Abortion is here to stay. The only question is how dangerous are we willing to make this most basic choice of bodily autonomy -- the choice of whether or not to put your own life, health, and wellbeing at risk to eventually bring another human into the world.

[Andrew Dittmar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading history:
Normally I keep this in my private notes section, but I'm moving it. Yay!

Reading history was not added on Goodreads, but was instead kept on a post-it note with the book.

Started May 20th, 2025.
Finished June 10th, 2025.

May 20th, 2025: read foreward + intro + pages 1-45 (through the Sarah Orne Jewett excerpt).
May 21st, 2025: read pp. 46-68 (Eugene O'Neill "Abortion" play).
May 22nd, 2025: read pp. 69-116 (paragraph ending at top of page) (Edith Wharton excerpt through start of Tess Slesinger excerpt).
May 24th, 2025: read pp. 112-157 (restarted Tess Slesinger excerpt, through "Peyton Place" excerpt).
June 9th, 2025: read pp. 158-195 ("The Abortionist" excerpt through Ruth Barnett excerpt)
June 10th, 2025: read pp. 196-end (Patricia Maginnis through afterword + acknowledgments)

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A random pick from the library, but this was such an interesting look at the history of how abortion is perceived in society through literature! I was especially intrigued with how enslaved women still committed abortions despite their circumstances. Some of the sections are extremely powerful and others just offer another slice of life. I appreciated that it was a quick read too. I think it's important to note that abortion is still going to happen regardless of the legal nature of it and these firsthand accounts of how prevalent this medical procedure remained throughout people's lives through history is evident of that. It offers a powerful perspective on the impact of abortion being illegal in every day people's lives and why abortion should be legal or, at least, more resources need to be provided for women to either prevent or support pregnancy.

[Tyler Sutherland · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10 - A brief collection of works both fiction and non-fiction pertaining to abortion in the United States, this book otherwise falls flat despite the hidden gems uncovered. There are segments that could have used trimming down to remain faithful to the focus of the book itself without sacrificing brevity; there are points where some select works were abridged in editing, whilst others were left to meander off the topic as some authors' purple prose wilted. One cannot help but feel more could have been included in this volume, but at barely 200 pages it is a sparse and disjointed mess hopping between poems, autobiographical testimonials, short-stories, entire length of plays with stage directions, all the way to clippings of long-form fiction with no central narrative.

[J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic anthology presenting a diverse, multifaceted study across genres and experiences. The contextualizing notes and essays were also strong. Absolutely infuriating and heartbreaking to read these and see the hopes of (once-achieved) safe, legal reproductive healthcare and freedom that has been lost.

[Tahneer N. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology is packed with pieces that have helped me understand and think about reproductive rights in all kinds of interesting ways. The introduction offers a brilliant contextualization of the literature. This is a book I didn't realize I really needed to read right now...

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

this made me crazy

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

By no means a fun read, but funny at times and anger inducing at other times and at other times heartbreaking. A complex collection for a complicated topic.

[Karalee James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The girlies have BEEN having abortions and will always have abortions and it just needs to be legal fuuuckkk!!!

[Madison Blanc · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful, moving anthology of pro-abortion literature preceding Roe v. Wade. This should be required reading.