The landmark case Roe v. Wade helped cement a redefinition of family: it is now commonplace for Americans to treat having children as a choice. But the historic decision coincided with what would become a decades-long trend of widening inequality, ensuring that many families still struggle to obtain even basic necessities. Reproduction Reconceived examines how family making actually became harder after the arrival of choice, as different families confronted incarceration, for-profit and racist medical care, disease, poverty, and a welfare state in retreat. Drawing on diverse archival sources and interviews, Sara Matthiesen illustrates how the last fifty years of state neglect have ensured that, for most families, meaningful choice is nowhere to be found.
Reproduction Reconceived Family Making and the Limits of Choice after Roe v. Wade
About the Book
Reviews
"Reproduction Reconceived is a meticulously researched history of the US state's effort to constrict motherhood among the poor, lesbians, incarcerated women, and Black women. Sara Matthiesen forces us to grapple with the false promise of choice since Roe v. Wade in the lives of marginalized families and the devaluation of mothers' uncompensated labor."—Sherie M. Randolph, author of Florynce "Flo" Kennedy: The Life of a Black Feminist Radical"Amid debates over whether childcare qualifies as 'infrastructure,' Reproduction Reconceived intervenes with a call to radically reframe reproduction, family, motherhood, and caregiving as public goods, rather than as private obligations. Compellingly argued and compulsively readable, it makes clear why public support for families and caregiving has never been more urgent or necessary. It is required reading for anyone trying to make sense of our current moment."—Melissa Murray, Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law, New York University
"As contemporary events continue to focus our attention on what the United States would be like without access to legal abortion, Matthiesen asks us to consider that by making pregnancy and childbirth into a 'choice,' Roe v. Wade opened the door to brutal and devastating state neglect of the survival and well-being of children, pregnant people, and all their kin and caregivers."—Laura Briggs, University of Massachusetts, author of How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics
"This remarkable book expands our understanding of reproductive choice well beyond Roe, forcing us to grapple with what it means for the most marginalized to have and raise children in a devastating context of state neglect. Thoroughly researched, deeply engaging, and brilliantly argued, it is a must-read for anyone who cares about the well-being of working families."—Premilla Nadasen, author of Welfare Warriors: The Welfare Rights Movement in the United States
"Matthiesen's brilliant and detailed history of women's 'family making' exposes how the focus on 'choice' in reproductive politics has obscured a legacy of governmental neglect that has produced inequities that sharply impact how families are made. This neglect has most impacted those who live and make families on the margins."—Jennifer Nelson, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of Redlands
"An original and provocative argument about how reproductive politics offers a new perspective on key changes in the political economy of the United States."—Sara Dubow, author of Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America
"Matthiesen brings together a unique set of case studies to paint a dire picture of the state of family making in the post-Roe United States."—Clare Daniel, author of Mediating Morality: The Politics of Teen Pregnancy in the Post-Welfare Era
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"Matthiesen's brilliant and detailed history of women's 'family making' exposes how the focus on 'choice' in reproductive politics has obscured a legacy of governmental neglect that has produced inequities that sharply impact how families are made. This neglect has most impacted those who live and make families on the margins."—Jennifer Nelson, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of Redlands
"An original and provocative argument about how reproductive politics offers a new perspective on key changes in the political economy of the United States."—Sara Dubow, author of Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America
"Matthiesen brings together a unique set of case studies to paint a dire picture of the state of family making in the post-Roe United States."—Clare Daniel, author of Mediating Morality: The Politics of Teen Pregnancy in the Post-Welfare Era
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