Abortion Pills Go Global: Reproductive Freedom Across Borders
Abortion Pills Go Global: Reproductive Freedom Across Borders
Embedded Files
An unprecedented, up-close look into the global self-managed abortion movement.
In 2023, I published a book about medication abortion pills and their global cross-border impacts. The book is available to buy here, from the University of California Press.
Abortion pills have made safe medication abortion possible for millions of people around the world, even in the most restrictive circumstances. In this timely book, Sydney Calkin illustrates the profound, transformative promise of these pills—which are safe, effective, and responsible for a sharp decline in maternal mortality. Abortion Pills Go Global demonstrates that the widespread practice of self-managed medication abortion makes it more difficult for countries to enforce oppressive abortion laws and less willing to do so.
REVIEWS
"[E]ye-opening . . . Calkin’s meticulous analysis demonstrates how the technological development of these pills has led to substantial changes in the social politics of abortion around the world, due not just to their ease of use but their ease of transport. The result is an incisive look at the deeply intertwined relationship between international supply chains, local politics, underground activism, and women’s rights."
"[T]his urgent book offers an insightful case-study, contributing to wider conversations about global social movements"
"A triumph of research and storytelling... Carefully researched and beautifully written"
"This is timely and important reading for anyone interested in abortion politics, pharmaceutical circulation, and comparative policy... Calkin makes a compelling case."
-- Medical Anthropology Quarterly
"A pioneering work that sheds light on the global movement of medication abortion [through a] unique academic-activist lens."
Is this book relevant to your teaching?
If you're an educator who would like to use this book in your teaching, please get in touch. I can provide teaching resources (discussion questions, group activities, prompts) for undergraduate and postgraduate students to easily integrate the book into your syllabus. Equally, I would be delighted to drop into your classroom on Zoom for a discussion with students. Please contact me to discuss further.
More reviews of Abortion Pills Go Global
"Abortion has always been a part of the human story, but until recent decades, those who chose it often risked their lives in the effort to avoid unwanted pregnancy. Sydney Calkin’s masterful accounting of the revolutionary impact of abortion medications is part history, part investigative reporting, and part forecasting. It is a must-read for anyone hoping to understand what is happening behind the scenes of the abortion war unfolding around the world today." —Michelle Oberman, author of Her Body, Our Laws: On the Front Lines of the Abortion War from El Salvador to Oklahoma
"Abortion Pills Go Global is an enlightening examination of how medication abortion has become the go-to option around the world. As Calkin shows so well, abortion pills have become a key facet of reproductive justice." —Rickie Solinger, coauthor of Reproductive Justice: An Introduction
“Abortion Pills Go Global couldn’t be more timely. An important contribution to the geographies of abortion and abortion technology that speaks to how activist practice responds to—and shapes—the legal and regulatory landscapes for reproductive care. If you want to know more about how abortion technology is mobilized within and across national boundaries and how abortion services could better reach those who need them, read this book!” —Maria Fannin, Professor of Human Geography, University of Bristol
"I cannot think of a more timely and important book in the world right now. Calkin’s Abortion Pills Go Global effectively situates medical abortion in wider reproductive justice and social decriminalization debates to tell us how abortion happens now and is changing the shape of the world we live in. It is not just a must-read for anyone interested in abortion, it is a must-read for anyone interested in geopolitics." —Sophie Harman, Professor of International Politics, Queen Mary University of London
“As well written as it is well researched, Calkin’s book is an incredibly thorough and nuanced study of the activist-driven provision of medical abortion pills in Europe and the United States. A must-read for anyone who is interested in knowing, fully and completely, what is happening on the ground.” —Mara Clarke, co-founder, Supporting Abortions For Everyone (S.A.F.E.)
"Sydney Calkin takes the question of women’s access to abortion as a jumping-off point for a searing account of the mutual entanglement of the moral and political economies of abortion pills. She offers a compelling and fresh take on a debate that has long been dominated by questions of the precise legal status of abortion. By following the practical strategies of access-to-abortion activists, Calkin retrains our sights: away from a tight focus on abstract legal regimes and onto people doing things. Phone calls and post offices pepper her tale of emancipatory tactics of our current moment’s most important feminist fight-back." —Sarah Hodges, Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, King’s College London
“Abortion Pills Go Global is excellent, incisive, exacting, and critical. Calkin’s work is always of outstanding quality, and this is no different. The book offers exciting case studies that are intellectually rich and empirically grounded, offering academics and activists regional insights as well as conceptual engagements.” —Kath Browne, Professor of Human Geography, University College Dublin
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