Dangerous Pregnancies (eBook)

Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America

Leslie J. Reagan (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2010
392 Seiten
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-94500-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Dangerous Pregnancies tells the largely forgotten story of the German measles epidemic of the early 1960s and how it created national anxiety about dying, disabled, and "e;dangerous"e; babies. This epidemic would ultimately transform abortion politics, produce new science, and help build two of the most enduring social movements of the late twentieth century--the reproductive rights and the disability rights movements. At most a minor rash and fever for women, German measles (also known as rubella), if contracted during pregnancy, could result in miscarriages, infant deaths, and serious birth defects in the newborn. Award-winning writer Leslie J. Reagan chronicles for the first time the discoveries and dilemmas of this disease in a book full of intimate stories--including riveting courtroom testimony, secret investigations of women and doctors for abortion, and startling media portraits of children with disabilities. In exploring a disease that changed America, Dangerous Pregnancies powerfully illuminates social movements that still shape individual lives, pregnancy, medicine, law, and politics.

Inhalt

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Epidemics, Reproduction, and the Fear of Maternal Marking

One. Observing Bodies
Two. Specter of Tragedy
Three. Wrongful Information
Four. Law Making and Law Breaking in an Epidemic
Five. "If Unborn Babies Are Going to Be Protected"

Epilogue: From Anxiety to Rights

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 20.7.2010
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Medizin / Pharmazie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Studium ► 2. Studienabschnitt (Klinik) ► Rechtsmedizin
• Themenwelt: Studium ► Querschnittsbereiche ► Epidemiologie / Med. Biometrie
• Themenwelt: Studium ► Querschnittsbereiche ► Geschichte / Ethik der Medizin
• Themenwelt: Studium ► Querschnittsbereiche ► Infektiologie / Immunologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies
• Schlagworte: 20th century american culture • 20th century american medical history • Abortion • Abortion politics • Children with Disabilities • courtroom testimony • dangerous babies • Disability • disability rights movement • disabled babies • Disease • Doctor • dying babies • Family • German measles • german measles epidemic • Health • infant deaths • Medicine • miscarriages • Motherhood • Mothers • national anxiety • newborn babies • parenthood • Pregnancy • Pregnant women • reproductive rights movement • rubella • Science • serious birth defects • Social Movements
• ISBN-10: 0-520-94500-X / 052094500X
• ISBN-13: 978-0-520-94500-5 / 9780520945005