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Lizzie Fletcher, center, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrats applaud as Marilyn Strickland speaks on reproductive freedom.
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What the Next 50 Years of Reproductive Rights Activism Can Learn from the Last 50

Success moving forward requires building a more inclusive movement than what existed during the Roe v. Wade era.
by Felicia Kornbluh via Made By History on January 20, 2023
A three panel image of Carrie Buck, Britney Spears, and Ann Cooper Hewitt.

Britney Spears, Carrie Buck and the Awful History of Controlling ‘Unfit’ Women

Behind Britney Spears's struggle to regain control of her fortune and her medical decisions is a long history of robbing women of basic freedoms.
by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on September 30, 2021
Carrie Buck and her mother, Emma, at the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, 1924

The Chilling Persistence of Eugenics

Elizabeth Catte’s new book traces a shameful history and its legacy today.
by Chris Lehmann via The New Republic on April 20, 2021
An old hospital room

“I Assumed It Was Urgent”: Helen Hurd’s Story

The story of medical sterilization, which in many cases was disguised as a routine appendectomy surgery.
by Caryn Radick via Nursing Clio on March 16, 2021
Protesters opposing ICE detention camps.
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The History of Eugenics in the U.S. Has Made Migrant Women Vulnerable

Marginalized women of color have long seen their reproductive freedom limited.
by Brianna Theobald via Made By History on September 20, 2020
A woman walking toward an isolated house on the Navajo reservation.

The Native American Women Who Fought Mass Sterilization

Over a six-year period in the 1970s, physicians sterilized perhaps 25% of Native American women of childbearing age.
by Brianna Theobald via TIME on November 27, 2019
Illustration of Arthur Estabrook taking a photograph of Carrie and Emma Buck.

Finding Carrie Buck

Doctors who sterilized Carrie Buck said she was a “feeble-minded” woman whose future offspring posed a threat to society. Her life paints a different picture.
by Cori Brosnahan via PBS NewsHour on November 2, 2018

Our Long, Troubling History of Sterilizing the Incarcerated

State-sanctioned efforts to keep the incarcerated from reproducing began in the early 20th century and continue today.
by David M. Perry via The Marshall Project on July 26, 2017
Woman who looks unhappy.

Unwanted Sterilization and Eugenics Programs in the United States

A shameful part of America’s history.
by Lisa Ko via PBS NewsHour on January 29, 2016
Title card for "Legacies of Eugenics" series, with a drawing of a form board for teaching shapes.

Trumpian “Common Sense” and the History of IQ Tests

On the troubling history of IQ tests and special education.
by Pepper Stetler via Los Angeles Review of Books on May 8, 2025
RFK Jr speaking at a podium.

RFK’s Ideas About “Wellness Farms” for Young People Are Eugenic and Unconstitutional

RFK’s call for “wellness farms” revives a grim legacy of forced labor, racial injustice, and eugenics disguised as mental health reform.
by Kylie Smith via Nursing Clio on May 8, 2025
A hand made into a fist is camouflaged against the American flag.

The Dark Parallels Between 1920s America and Today’s Political Climate

The early 1920s in the US offers historical lessons on how current pessimism about the state of the country can manifest in dangerous, discriminatory ways.
by Alex Green via The Conversation on March 10, 2025
Birth control devices in different shapes and forms.

The Battle for Birth Control Could Have Gone Differently

Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett each had a different vision of reproductive freedom. Would reproductive rights be more secure if Dennett’s had prevailed?
by Joanna Scutts via The New Republic on January 3, 2025
Students at an Indian boarding school.

Acknowledgment as Denialism: The Myth of Reparations in the US

What is an apology from the President of the United States worth if reparations do not include cessation of settler colonial violence?
by Ja'loni Owens via Scalawag on December 11, 2024
Demonstrators outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 2024.
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How Doctors Came to Play a Key Role in the Abortion Debate

While the phrase "between a woman and her doctor" has been used to protect abortion access, it also reflects physicians' outsized power.
by Emma Peterson, Daniel Martinez Hosang via Made By History on June 20, 2024
Nurses with babies

Legacies of Eugenics: An Introduction

Despite assumptions about its demise, it is still enmeshed in the foundations of how some professions think about the world.
by Osagie K Obasogie via Los Angeles Review of Books on April 17, 2024
Heather Booth playing guitar for Fannie Lou Hamer.

Why Fannie Lou Hamer Endures

She’s mostly remembered for one famous speech. Her actual legacy is far greater than that.
by Claire Bond Potter via Democracy Journal on March 9, 2022
Third World Women's Alliance member demonstrating in crowd

How Black Feminists Defined Abortion Rights

As liberation movements bloomed, they offered a vision of reproductive justice that was about equality, not just “choice.”
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor via The New Yorker on February 22, 2022
Cribs in maternity ward
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Worried About a Population Bust? History Shows We Shouldn’t Be.

Letting panic about fertility rates drive policy is dangerous.
by Mytheli Sreenivas via Made By History on July 19, 2021
A scientific instrument

How the Sinister Study of Eugenics Legitimized Forced Sterilization in the United States

Audrey Clare Farley on the scientists who weaponized biology.
by Audrey Clare Farley via Literary Hub on April 22, 2021
Elizabeth Catte and her book

'Pure America': Eugenics Past and Present

Historian Elizabeth Catte traces the history and influence of eugenics from her backyard across the country.
by Elizabeth Catte, Adam Willems via Scalawag on March 2, 2021
Illustration of phrenologiy models

Phrenology Is Here to Stay

“Pseudoscience,” race, and American politics.
by Courtney E. Thompson via Medium on February 11, 2021
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Migrant Detention Centers Have a Long History of Medical Neglect and Abuse

The link between medical abuse, racism and immigration runs deep.
by Jessica Ordaz via Made By History on September 18, 2020
Justice Clarence Thomas arrives for the ceremonial swearing-in of Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the East Room of the White House on Oct. 8, 2018.

Why Clarence Thomas Is Trying to Bring Eugenics Into the Abortion Debate

They really do not have anything to do with each other.
by Adam S. Cohen, Dahlia Lithwick via Slate on June 17, 2019

Clarence Thomas Used My Book to Argue Against Abortion

The justice used my book to tie abortion to eugenics. But his rendition of the history is incorrect.
by Adam S. Cohen via The Atlantic on May 29, 2019
A field of gravestones.

Good Bones

What is a small, historically-minded community meant to do with something like Western State Hospital?
by Elizabeth Catte via Popula on September 25, 2018

White Nationalists Held a Race Rally in Charlottesville. The Location Was No Coincidence.

The region was at the epicenter of eugenic policy-making in the first half of the 20th century.
by Frederick Coye Heard via Scalawag on August 13, 2018

The Book That Incited a Worldwide Fear of Overpopulation

'The Population Bomb' made dire predictions—and triggered a wave of repression around the world.
by Charles C. Mann via Smithsonian on January 1, 2018

The US Medical System is Still Haunted by Slavery

Medicine’s dark history helps explain why black mothers are dying at alarming rates.
by Ranjani Chakraborty via Vox on December 7, 2017
Carrie Buck with her mother Emma.

The Forgotten Lessons of the American Eugenics Movement

It's impossible to revisit the history of America's quest for racial purity without sometimes being reminded of the current public discourse.
by Andrea DenHoed via The New Yorker on April 27, 2016
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