The real targets of abortion bans

Plus: a historian on the Apple TV+ Ben Franklin show |

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By Made by History / Produced by Olivia B. Waxman Just this month, Florida’s Supreme Court upheld a state ban on abortions and Arizona’s Supreme Court ruled that an 1864 almost total abortion prohibition — enacted before women had the right to vote — remains the law of the land. Many Democrats decry these rulings, among other efforts to ban abortion across America, as a war on women. But R.E. Fulton explains in Made by History that, if one looks historically at abortion bans, it becomes clear that such laws are more a war on poor women. Fulton zeroes in on the selective enforcement of an abortion prohibition in New York State in the 19th century, showing that—despite authorities being more likely to prosecute providers in cases that involved a wealthier woman of a higher class—wealthy women could discreetly find abortion providers, while poorer women struggled to do so. Today, Fulton argues, considering the disproportionate impact of abortion bans on women who can’t afford to miss work or travel to another state, the same dynamics are playing out again.

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FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1981: Diana, as Princess in waiting TIME The April 20, 1981, cover of TIME “Intensity, like color, is not highly prized in a monarchical marriage. ‘This falling in love at first sight,’ said Mountbatten, ‘is not the way that royal marriages are made.’ But watching Lady Diana in tears at the airport as her fiancé headed off on his Austral wanderings, one wonders if she might not modify that standard as well. As for Charles, he speaks publicly about his philosophical uncertainties. (‘In love?’ asked an interviewer. ‘Of course,’ said she. ‘Whatever 'in love' means,’ said he.) But it is heartening to learn that he has placed frequent phone calls from Down Under to the girl he left behind. As bulletins on the romance are issued like hourly weather forecasts, preparations for the royal wedding on July 29 proceed amid a storm of activity.” Read More » This week in 1995: Claudia Schiffer Cover Credit: PATRICK DEMARCHELIER Claudia Schiffer on the Apr. 17, 1995, cover of TIME “Supermodels are no longer just pairs of wide-set eyes and endless limbs; they are becoming diversified corporations. ‘I am my own business,’ proclaims [Naomi] Campbell. ‘I used to fly to a country for a day and do another shoot somewhere else the next, but I don't do that as often as I used to. It takes a toll. I'm realizing that, now that I'm 24.’ Last Friday Campbell entered the presumably less stressful restaurant business. She and partners Claudia Schiffer and Elle MacPherson (who has landed a multipicture deal with Miramax) were on hand for the much-ballyhooed opening of their new Fashion Cafe at New York's Rockefeller Center. ‘It's our baby. We make all the decisions,’ asserts Schiffer, 24. ‘The difference between the girls today and models of the past is that we are not only interested in fashion; we are going in so many different directions at once. We work harder-at night and on weekends.’” Read More » This week in 2011: the American Civil War's legacy LINCOLN PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY/BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY. TEAR BY TIM O'BRIEN The April 18, 2011, cover of TIME “Slavery, as many have noted, was America's original sin. The Framers made an ugly compromise to ratify the Constitution, many of them knowing that the seed of disunion had been planted even as the Republic was born. Lincoln regarded the Declaration, not the Constitution, as the moral template for America, and even though he was not an extreme abolitionist, he saw "all men are created equal" as the vision statement for the nation. He knew and wrote that the Civil War would not have happened except for slavery. On the 150th anniversary of the war, David Von Drehle's powerful cover story makes clear that "forgetting was the price of reconciliation."… It was easier for survivors, and later for entire schools of historians, to frame the war in terms of a conflict over trade or states' rights than to face the terrible legacy of slavery on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line.” Read More »

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