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Before Roe: The Physicians' Crusade
Abortion wasn't always controversial. In fact, in colonial America it would have been considered a fairly common practice: a private decision made by women, and aided mostly by midwives. But in the mid-1800s, a small group of physicians set out to change that. Obstetrics was a new field, and they wanted it to be their domain—meaning, the domain of men and medicine. Led by a zealous young doctor named Horatio Storer, they launched a campaign to make abortion illegal in every state, spreading a potent cloud of moral righteousness and racial panic that one historian later called "the physicians' crusade." And so began the century of criminalization.
In the first episode of a two-part series, we're telling the story of that century: how doctors put themselves at the center of legal battles over abortion, first to criminalize — and then to legalize.
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Before Roe: The Physicians' Crusade
May 19, 202212:10 AM ET
[Ramtin Arablouei, co-host and co-producer of Throughline.]
Victor Yvellez
Deborah George
Before Roe: The Physicians' Crusade
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52:43
52:43
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Transcript](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1099795225)
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Transcript](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1099795225)