Pregnancy, Motherhood, and Choice in Twentieth-Century Arizona (2nd ed.)
Description
Early twentieth-century Arizona was a life-threatening place for new and expectant mothers. Towns were small and very far apart, and the weather and harsh landscape often delayed midwives. It was not uncommon for a woman to give birth without medical care and with the aid of only family members. By the 1920s, Arizona was at the top of the list for the highest number of infant deaths.
Mary Melcher’s Pregnancy, Motherhood, and Choice in Twentieth-Century Arizona provides a deep and diverse history of the dramatic changes in childbirth, birth control, infant mortality, and abortion over the course of the last century. Using oral histories, memoirs, newspaper accounts, government documents, letters, photos, and biographical collections, this fine-grained study of women’s reproductive health places the voices of real women at the forefront of the narrative, providing a personal view into some of the most intense experiences of their lives.
Tackling difficult issues such as disparities in reproductive health care based on race and class, abortion, and birth control, this book seeks to change the way the world looks at women’s health. An essential read for both historians and public health officials, this book reveals that many of the choices and challenges that women once faced remain even today.
"This impresseivly researched and well-written book reveals a most fundamental yet rarely recorded part of human life. Public historian Melcher uses oral histories among other sources to examine what it was like to give birth and control fertility in the southwestern US during the 20th century."— CHOICE
"Melcher's timely book provides cultural and environmental context to an issue too often interpreted only through legal and political lenses."— Journal of Arizona History
Arizona attorney general says territorial-area law banning abortion is in effect (AZ's AG was an amicus curiæ on the Dobbs case.)
April 9, 2024, update: "Arizona Supreme Court Confirms There’s No Right to Abortion"
The 1865 law (A.R.S. §13.3603):
§45. [E]very person who shall administer or cause to be administered or taken, any medicinal substances, or shall use or cause to be used any instruments whatever, with the intention to procure the miscarriage of any woman then being with child , and shall be thereof duly convicted, shall be punished by imprisonment in the Territorial prison for a term not less than two years nor more than five years: Provided, that no physician shall be affected by the last clause of this section, who in the discharge of his professional duties, deems it necessary to produce the miscarriage of any woman in order to save her life.
Arizona has some other laws (Melcher 2012, 20):
Arizona Criminal Code, Tit. 13, 1901 (rev. 1913, 1928, 1939)
(13–212) A woman who solicits from any person any medicine, drug or substance whatever, and takes it, or who submits to an operation, or the use of any means whatever, with intent thereby to procure a miscarriage, unless it is necessary to preserve her life, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not less than one nor more than five years.
Another Arizona law mimicked the federal Comstock Law 1873), which outlawed birth control throughout the nation:
(13–213) A person who willfully writes, composes or publishes a notice or advertisement of any medicine or means for producing or facilitating a miscarriage or abortion, or for prevention of conception, or who offers his services by a notice, advertisement or otherwise, to assist in the accomplishment of any such purposes, is guilty of a misdemeanor.