Description

Abortion Stories is a groundbreaking anthology offering a powerful intersectional exploration of the literary representations and narratives surrounding abortion in America before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide in 1973. In the first-ever collection of its kind, editor Karen Weingarten brings together a diverse array of stories, poems, essays, and memoirs that reveal a wide spectrum of voices and perspectives from this pivotal era.

Through compelling literary selections from celebrated authors such as Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Edgar Allan Poe, Lucille Clifton, Eugene O’Neill, and Shirley Chisholm, along with rare firsthand accounts from abortion patients and providers, Abortion Stories showcases how abortion has always been intricately linked to broader human experiences—themes of love, death, medicine, motherhood, enslavement, and emancipation. Taken together, these distinctive pieces clearly illustrate the central truth that emerges from restricting abortion access: whenever abortion is illegal, women’s lives inevitably become more precarious, limited, and dangerous.

Deeply attentive to race, class, and socioeconomic status, this anthology thoughtfully emphasizes how access to abortion—and the consequences of illegal procedures—disproportionately impact communities in vastly different ways. Abortion Stories affirms the long-standing human need and desire for reproductive freedom, reinforcing a powerful argument for safe, legal, and equitable access to abortion.

Abortion Stories is introduced and edited by Karen Weingarten, and features a foreword by renowned feminist writer Rebecca Traister and an afterword by reproductive justice advocate Renee Bracey Sherman. Recognized as one of Ms. Magazine’s Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2025, this timely and vital Penguin Classics volume offers critical historical context and insight into our ongoing efforts toward reproductive justice.