Supreme Court’s selective reading of US history ignored 19th-century women’s support for ‘voluntary motherhood’

Members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association participate in a 1910 parade in Washington, D.C. Paul Thompson/FPG/Archive Photos/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

The history of abortion in the U.S. guided some of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. Alito argued that abortion has never been a “deeply rooted” constitutional right in the United States.

But as a historian of medicine, law and women’s rights, I think Alito’s read of abortion history is not only incomplete, it is also inaccurate.