Despite the importance of the history of illegal abortion for shedding light on contemporary debates about abortion and reproductive policy, we know very little about the era when abortion was illegal. """"""""When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law, Chicago, 1867-1973"""""""" will be the first historical study of the entire period of illegal abortion in the United States from its criminalization in the mid-nineteenth century to its decriminalization by 1973. The book charts the patterns of medical practice of abortion and the enforcement of the criminal abortion laws. This project is rooted in the theoretical perspective that under-standing the history of medicine requires looking at medicine in practice, rather than focussing solely on medical leaders and prescriptive texts. The study has been designed to analyze the impact of the criminalization of abortion by studying public policy as it was carried out at the local level on a day-to-day basis--in the lives of ordinary women, in the offices of physicians, in hospitals, and in police stations. Abortion serves as a case study for illuminating the relationship between physicians and patients, for discovering physicians' practices, for reexamining the organization of hospitals, and for analyzing the interaction between medicine and the law. """"""""When Abortion Was a Crime"""""""" demonstrates the power of patients to influence medicine, while also showing the medical profession's power to shape public policy regarding reproduction. This book finds that in the face of the dilemmas created by illegal abortion, the medical profession both strived to preserve its autonomy and at the same time ended up restricting itself and policing physicians and patients for the state. Finally, it adds to our understanding of the female experience of reproduction. The book is based on innovative research in medical and legal records. An NLM Publication Grant will allow me to complete the manuscript and submit it for publication with a University press.
