Book dossier

Dangerous pregnancies

by Leslie J. Reagan

This work tells the largely forgotten story of the German measles epidemic of the early 1960s and how it created national anxiety about dying, disabled, and "dangerous" babies. This epidemic would ultimately transform abortion politics, produce new science, and help build two of the most enduring social movements of the late twentieth century, the reproductive rights and the disability rights movements. At most a minor rash and fever for women, German measles (also known as rubella), if contracted during pregnancy, could result in miscarriages, infant deaths, and serious birth defects in the newborn. The author chronicles for the first time the discoveries and dilemmas of this disease in a book full of intimate stories, including riveting courtroom testimony, secret investigations of women and doctors for abortion, and startling media portraits of children with disabilities. In exploring a disease that changed America, this book illuminates social movements that still shape individual lives, pregnancy, medicine, law, and politics.