The Politics of Reproductive Rights in 1960s & 1970s New York

Prior to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, much of the focus of reproductive rights organizing in the US was done in the states, and nowhere was that more effective than in New York, where leftist feminists in groups like Redstockings and more mainstream activists in groups like the National Organization for Women (NOW) together pushed the state legislature to enact the most liberal abortion law in the country by early 1970. The wide range of reproductive rights activism in New York also included the headquarters for both the Clergy Consultation Service, which helped women find safe abortion care, and the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (CESA), which fought the often deceptive population control inflicted on women of color.

Joining me to help us understand more about the push for reproductive rights in New York in the 1960s and 1970s is Dr. Felicia Kornbluh, a Professor of History and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of Vermont, and the author of the upcoming book, A Woman's Life Is a Human Life: My Mother, Our Neighbor, and the Journey from Reproductive Rights to Reproductive Justice.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is “Betty Friedan, president of the National Organization for Women, tells reporters in the New York State Assembly lobby of the groups intention to ‘put sex into section I of the New York constitution,’” Albany New York, 1967, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-DIG-ppmsca-83073].

Additional Sources:

• “How Clergy Set the Standard for Abortion Care,” by Bridgette Dunlap, The Atlantic, May 29, 2016.
• “Clergymen Offer Abortion Advice,” by Edward B. Fiskethe, New York Times, May 22, 1967.
• “The 1960s provide a path for securing legal abortion in 2022,” by Felicia Kornbluh, Washington Post, June 25, 2022.
• “Harsh, then a haven: A look at New York abortion rights history,” b​By Tim Balk, New York Daily News, May 07, 2022.
• “Remembering an Era Before Roe, When New York Had the ‘Most Liberal’ Abortion Law,” by Julia Jacobs, The New York Times, June 19, 2018.
• “The First Time Women Shouted Their Abortions,” by Nona Willis Aronowitz, The New York Times, March 23, 2019.
• “Karen Stamm collection of Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse (CARASA) records,” Sophia Smith Collection, SSC-MS-00811, Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, Massachusetts.
• “Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (CESA) Statement of Purpose,” 1975.
• “Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias: A Warrior in the Struggle for Reproductive Rights,” by Kathryn Krase, National Women’s Health Network, January 5, 1996.

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