A Street-Level View of the History of Abortion
Real People, Real Feelings
There is plenty of scholarship looking into the political history of abortion in America or the legal history, but we wanted to take a different angle. We wanted to look not at what the common law was in early America or just what the politics of abortion has been like over the years. We wanted to look at what people actually felt and thought about abortion. We wanted to give that street-level perspective, you could say, as opposed to suite-level—the level of ideas and concepts.
The Story of Abortion in America
Marvin Olasky, Leah Savas
Authors Marvin Olasky and Leah Savas detail the long history of abortion and its impact on American culture through vivid personal stories that humanize people on both sides of the debate.
We wanted to see what everyday people did and how what they believed affected what they did with a really detailed look at abortion in individuals’ lives and how it affected their lives. With this, we get to better understand the reality of abortion. What does it do? How does it affect individual men and women? What does it actually do to the unborn child in the womb? We wanted to make it very detailed and at the level of reality—and of everyday people—as opposed to just concepts and ideas.
Leah Savas is coauthor with Marvin Olasky of The Story of Abortion in America: A Street-Level History, 1652–2022.
Related Articles
Unpacking “My Body, My Choice”
God alone is the potter. He alone knits cells together in the womb to form a baby human. He alone has the right to destroy or glorify the work of his hands.
An Open Letter to a Young Woman Contemplating an Abortion
If by “personal” we mean something that belongs to you and no one else, your decision about whether or not to end this pregnancy by abortion is not as personal as they say.
The Structural Abortionism That Remains after Roe v. Wade
I cannot forecast accurately the changes that will come in the first post-Roe decade. I can, though, list some fundamental things that will still apply.
Podcast: The Dark History of Abortion in America (Leah Savas)
Leah Savas talks about some of the forgotten history of abortion and about the efforts to protect unborn life in America that extend back over 300 years, even before the nation's founding.
