The Abortionist: A Woman against the Law

This twenty—fifth anniversary edition places abortion politics in the context of reproductive justice today and explains why abortion has been—and remains—a political flashpoint in the United States.

Before Roe v. Wade, hundreds of thousands of illegal abortions occurred in the United States every year. Rickie Solinger tells the story of Ruth Barnett, an abortionist in Portland, Oregon, from 1918 to 1968, to demonstrate how the law, not back‑alley practitioners, endangered women’s lives in ...