The Abortion Market

“The Abortion Market provides an important missing piece in the history of one of the most divisive and politically impactful issues in the United States. Parkin’s gripping account of the economic forces shaping abortion practice before Roe shows how the market for abortion not only shaped medical treatment but also abortion politics itself.”– “Mary Ziegler, author of Roe: The History of a National Obsession”“The Abortion Market is a compelling, necessary account of the financial exploitation of abortion seekers in the decade before Roe v. Wade. In those years, abortion entrepreneurs capitalized on women’s desperate circumstances to make incredible profits; women overcame monumental financial, emotional, and logistical hurdles to get the medical procedure; while activists, friends, and universities eventually worked to aid abortion seekers and curtail the industry’s worst abuses. Katherine J. Parkin follows the money through the abortion marketplace and, in so doing, offers an indispensable, cautionary tale for our modern moment.”– “Jennifer Holland, author of Tiny You: A Western History of the Anti-Abortion Movement”“The Abortion Market is a revelation. Katherine J. Parkin follows the money to see where and how women accessed abortion in the decade before Roe. The result is a fascinating and wide-ranging account that demonstrates the profits gained by abortion providers and referral services as well as the motives of the philanthropists who financed the campaign for legalization, mostly in the name of stemming a supposed crisis in overpopulation. This is required reading as we face another crisis of abortion accessibility in our own era.”– “Nicholas L. Syrett, author of The Trials of Madame Restell: Nineteenth-Century America’s Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime”

Katherine J. Parkin is Professor of History at Monmouth University. She is author of Women at the Wheel: A Century of Buying, Driving, and Fixing Cars and Food Is Love: Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America.