Race, class, and reproduction: The evolution of reproductive policy in the United States, 1800-1989

This dissertation analyzes the evolution of reproductive policy in the United States. It traces the emergence of birth control and abortion as social and legal issues in the nineteenth century and contends that nativism was the strongest motivation in the movement to criminalize means of fertility control. The decline in native fecundity at the same time hordes of immigrants with high fertility rates flocked to the United States led to fears of race suicide. Because many doctors attributed this decline in native births to abortions among married Anglo Saxon Protestant women, the American Medical Association initiated a successful campaign to ban any methods of fertility control.;Yet these race concerns did not disappear. In fact, these fears seemed to increase in the twentieth century. Not only did many people agonize over the difference between native and immigrant fertility but also over the disparity between the fecundity of the "fit" and "unfit". Births among the "best"--wealthy, educated Protestants--continued to decline while births among the "inferior"--poor, uneducated, defectives--remained high. Race suicide theorists contended that the consistent use of birth control among the former group accounted for the variance in fertility rates. They endeavored to convince the "best" stock that their incessant use of contraceptives would eventually endanger the future of the nation.;When these arguments failed to alter the reproductive patterns of the "right" types of people, many of these theorists changed their tactics during the 1910s and 1920s. Rather than ban the use of birth control among the "best", they attempted to liberalize legislation to make contraceptives available to the "unfit". By the 1960s, this campaign had gained a great deal of support. The federal government finally abandoned its restrictive attitude and positioned itself behind the liberalization of reproductive legislation. The primary determinant in this reformation was mounting welfare expenditures in the 1960s. Many people advocated the removal of contraceptive restrictions as a means to decrease the cost of AFDC, to reduce government funds to institutions for special needs people, and to curb the escalating welfare rolls swollen by the high fecundity of the poor.