Solinger also advances a troubling economic thesis about adoption, defined roughly as "the transfer of babies from women of one social classification to women in a higher social classification or group." Bracing and well-researched, Solinger's arguments should be considered by anyone working for women's and children's rights. --Regina Marler

"Solinger is impressively optimistic about America's potential not only to evolve into 'a country of reproductive justice,' but also to overcome centuries of the sex, race, and class prejudice that have literally built our society.'
—Bitch

"A concise historical overview. . . . Based primarily on a vast array of well-documented secondary sources, this book is a well-written and useful overview of the politics behind pregnancy in the U.S. . . . Highly recommended."
—Choice

"This succinct, highly readable political and cultural history of a wide range of reproductive issues is a near-perfect primer on the topic."
—Publishers Weekly

”The book is well documented and well written... I expect this book to find a place in many classrooms.”
— The Journal of American History

"Rickie Solinger puts today's 'culture wars' over abortion, birth control and sex education into a historical context that is rich, complex and full of surprises. A deeply researched-and highly readable-book that should reach the widest possible audience."
—Katha Pollitt, author of Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture

"An extraordinary accomplishment. In a courageous exploration of American history, Solinger demonstrates how public supervision of sex and social reproduction have served to maintain racial privilege."
—Alice Kessler-Harris, author of In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men, and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America

"Pregnancy and Power definitively demolishes the myth that reproductive politics has ever been about women's choice. Rickie Solinger's brilliant and comprehensive analysis shows that, throughout U.S. history, reproductive regulation has served a social agenda that especially disadvantages women of color."
—Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

"We must all be grateful to Rickie Solinger for another of her pithy, compelling interpretive histories. Pregnancy and Power offers a thoughtful, lucid overview of reproductive issues throughout U.S. history—an extremely valuable contribution that should be widely read."
—Linda Gordon, author of The Moral Property of Women: Birth Control Politics in America

"Solinger shows how the past is truly prologue as she connects contemporary political struggles over pregnancy and pregnancy limitation to racism and colonialism in the United States"
—Loretta J. Ross, co-author, Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice

"Pregnancy and Power embraces far more than the usual perspective."
—MBR: California Bookwatch

[R]eading Rickie Solinger's Pregnancy and Power felt in some ways like taking a medicinal tonic. She provides a vision of what a society dedicated to reproductive justice could be... [Pregnancy and Power] made me think— and for that, I like this book immensely.
—The Women's Review of Books

A sweeping chronicle of women's battles for reproductive freedom throughout American history, Pregnancy and Power explores the many forces—social, racial, economic, and political—that have shaped women's reproductive lives in the United States.

Leading historian Rickie Solinger argues that a woman's control over her body involves much more than the right to choose an abortion. Reproductive politics were at play when slaveholders devised breeding schemes, when the U.S. government took Indian children from their families in the nineteenth century, and when doctors pressed Latina women to be sterilized in the 1970s. Tracing the diverse plot lines of women's reproductive lives throughout American history, Solinger redefines the idea of reproductive freedom, putting race and class at the center of the effort to control sex and pregnancy in America over time.

Solinger asks which women have how many children under what circumstances, and shows how reproductive experiences have been encouraged or coerced, rewarded or punished, honored or exploited over the last 250 years. Viewed in this way, the debate over reproductive rights raises questions about access to sex education and prenatal care, about housing laws, about access to citizenship, and about which women lose children to adoption and foster care.

Pregnancy and Power shows that a complete understanding of reproductive politics must take into account the many players shaping public policy-lawmakers, educators, employers, clergy, physicians-as well as the consequences for women who obey and resist these policies. Tracing the diverse plotlines of women's reproductive lives throughout American history, Solinger redefines the idea of reproductive freedom, putting race and class at the center of the struggle to control sex and pregnancy in America.