THE ABORTION DECISION: Personal and Economic Outcomes

The pennyroyal plant, made into pills that were sold in tins, was the focus of a recent TikTok trend in the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, and the resulting bans on abortion occuring in many U.S. states.

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to have an abortion. Along with visualizations for recent economic data as well as the landmark Abortionomics Report, the items in this exhibit link past and present experiences of abortion, from using plants like pennyroyal to control conception and real-life abortion stories in Voices from the Waiting Room, to activist pins from abortion-access organizations.

Chichester Chemical Company. Chichester's English Red Cross Diamond Brand New Style Pennyroyal Pills. Madison Square, Philadelphia: [between 1888 and 1906]. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

This exhibition was curated by Dr. Genna Miller, Duke Lecturing Fellow of Economics and  Laura Micham, Director, Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture and Curator, Gender and Sexuality History Collections