Mary Ziegler

A new book chronicles the decades-long fight to legalize abortion in the United States.

How the movement to end legal abortion became intertwined with a different conservative pet project.

The debate over abortion is an important part of the story of polarization in American politics, but it is not its genesis.

The anti-obscenity law is unenforceable and probably unconstitutional. Conservatives still want to use it to ban medication abortions.

Once considered a relic of moral panics past, the 1873 law criminalized sending "obscene, lewd or lascivious" materials through the mail.

With the Comstock Act of 1873 coming back to life, reproductive care, LGBTQ protections, and a host of other civil rights are now at risk.

Religious conservatives see “anti-eugenic” laws as the most promising path to establish a federal ban on abortion.