Aug 9, 2016 · It was an epidemic that helped legalize abortion, the very right Rubio fights against. Rubella, or German measles, hit American soil with a vengeance between 1963 and 1965. An estimated 12.5...

Feb 2, 2015 · A group of doctors defied the law to terminate the pregnancies of women exposed to rubella, stoking the already contentious abortion debate.

Williams Obstetrics, the standard medical textbook, advised doctors that therapeutic abortion was “justifiable” in such cases if the pregnant woman and her husband decided upon it. German measles (also known as rubella) was first recognized as a teratogen by an Australian ophthalmologist in 1941.

Leslie J. Reagan’s Dangerous Pregnancies tells the fascinating story of how the German measles (rubella) epidemic in the US in the 1960s set the terms of the both the contemporary abortion debate and the modern disability rights movement.

Mar 1, 2011 · Leslie J. Reagan’s Dangerous Pregnancies tells the fascinating story of how the German measles (rubella) epidemic in the US in the 1960s set the terms of the both the contemporary abortion debate and the modern disability rights movement.

Feb 5, 2016 · The first reports that rubella, also known as German measles, could cause birth defects came in the early 1940s after an outbreak of the virus in Australia.

Dangerous Pregnancies 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 ...

When women contracted German measles in early pregnancy, they were "entitled" to therapeutic abortion, according to one 1959 magazine.1 Williams Obstetrics, the standard medical textbook, advised doctors that therapeutic abortion was "justifiable" in such cases if …

Aware of the disease's effects, thousands of pregnant women who contracted German measles avidly sought abortions. Yet, as many learned in the 1950s and 1960s, the decision to carry a possibly affected pregnancy or have a therapeutic abortion was not clearly in their hands at all.

In the case of German measles, some doctors told women not to worry, that the chance of disability was slim. Other doctors believed the likelihood was 50 to 100 percent and advised abortion, which was then illegal.