Library hosts a talk on the history of emergency contraception

Women’s health author at Lamar Soutter Library Nov. 8

October 31, 2012

In light of increasing debate in the current election season surrounding women’s reproductive health, the Humanities in Medicine Committee of the Lamar Soutter Library will spotlight the subject when it welcomes Heather Munro Prescott, PhD, the author of the recently published The Morning After: A History of Emergency Contraception in the United States. Dr. Prescott will speak and sign copies of her new book on Thursday, Nov. 8.

Prescott is professor of history at Central Connecticut State University, where she studies and teaches recent U.S. history, U.S. women’s history, the history of medicine and public health, history of childhood and disability history. Her previous books are A Doctor of Their Own: The History of Adolescent Medicine and Student Bodies: The Impact of Student Health on American Society and Medicine.

Prescott solicited input for The Morning After from women who have used emergency contraception—not just since 2009 legislation to make it available to women ages 17 and older, but since it first became available in the 1960s—as well as their partners, health care providers and activists. By way of introduction, she wrote, “. . . within the larger context of women’s health activism in the second half of the twentieth century . . . this project will show women not only as test subjects for this new method of birth control but also as active health care consumers.”

A reviewer of The Morning After observed, “What would a presidential campaign be without a good dose of reproductive politics? To be sure, many of us are surprised to see contraception, and not just abortion, called into question. If you care about reproductive rights, you’ll want to take a look at [Prescott’s] book.”

The event will take place in the library’s Rare Book Room, with a reception at 5:30 p.m. followed by the formal program at 6 p.m. Light refreshments will be served, and copies of The Morning After will be available for purchase. Email Nancy Linnehan for more information.