History of Female Reproductive Rights Explained

The history of female reproductive rights explained. It covers everything from ancient women's history, to feminism, to Roe vs Wade. This video will cover reproductive rights for women for the whole world.

Credits
- Research: Mrs Scope
- Animation: Petra Lilla Marjai
- Audio: Seb. Soto
- Writing and Voice Over: Avery from History Scope

Social Media

FURTHER WATCHING

SOURCES:
De sociale achtergrond van moeders in Oudenaarde: een demografische studie op basis van een materniteitsarchief (1857-1912) - Annelies Adriaensens.
- Russel, A. (2019) So Here I Am – Speeches by Great Women to Empower and Inspire. White Lion Publishing. London.
- Davis, A. Y. (2019) Women, Race& Class. Penguin. London.
- El Saadawi, N. (2015) The Hidden Face of Eve. Zed Books. London
- Delap, L. (2020) Feminisms – A Global History. Pelican Books. London
- Gleeson, S. (2020) Constellations. Picador. London
- Hong Fincher, L (2018) Betraying Big Brother. Verso. London
- Kan, K (2019) Under Red Skies. Hurst&Company. London
Zareba, K.; Herman, K.; Kołb-Sielecka, E.; Jakiel, G. – Abortion in Countries with Restrictive Abortion Laws—Possible Directions and Solutions from the Perspective of Poland. Healthcare 2021, 9, 1594.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
06:07 Worldwide Criminilaisation
12:25 Europe
18:21 The Rest of the World
19:29 Controlling Women
22:22 The United States of America
27:37 Latin America
32:31 The Rest of Asia
34:29 Africa
36:46 21st Century

[HistoryScope]

KEEP THE COMMENT SECTION CIVIL. NO PERSONAL INSULTS ALLOWED. I WILL BAN MEAN PEOPLE FROM THE COMMENT SECTION.

We are all mature enough to talk about this subject without resorting to name calling. I understand that this topic brings up quite a lot of emotions in people. But that's no reason to personally insult people. You can say someone's argument is stupid, but not that the person themselves is.

[djvel]

There is a bit of information that is wrong in this video. First, Ireland banned abortion not because "their former colonizers forced it upon them" but because they are a deeply Catholic country who sees abortion as murder. I don't think you emphasized how big of a role the Catholic Church played in keeping abortion illegal. This goes for pretty much any former colony that is majority Catholic. It is easy to blame their former colonizers for their old laws restricting abortion, but you forget that the reason these laws remained is because they were popular. Restricting reproductive rights is extremely popular in societies that do not have equal rights for women. Second, minorities in China were always exempted from the one-child policy, even when it was first implemented, rather than being constrained by it. Lastly, I felt that the information about the US was a bit too brief, because it's definitely an outlier. However, I assume that you will probably go over it more when you talk about why the US is so religious. Looking forward to that video!

[UGMD]

American here: while I was already familiar with all the US history presented here, absolutely none of it was taught in schools. I took the most advanced and detailed history class offered, and yet it completely skipped over the eugenics movement and abortion in general. Teddy Roosevelt is displayed as a near flawless character, when this quote shows him in a completely different light. Thanks Avery for the European view into the subject!

[Pikaling]

Romanian here: Abortion was once again banned in Romania under the Ceaușescu regime from 1967 until after the Romanian revolution in 1989 under Decree 770.

[meflufffy]

Thank you! Didn't know about the RU 486. I really love your channel, can't get enaugh! Listening to your videos, while doing some tedious parts of work, so really appreciate the long ones :) And your humour is the best!

[FroggieBoi]

The little “it’s here, Avery” on the map took my by surprise since I’m an Avery 😂

[gianii]

the only thing i want to add is that the procedure was illegal in Romania, up until the 1989 revolution, my grandma died from a secret procedure done by an elderly lady from a village outside of town

[IAsimov]

A worldwide and historical view of the subject always helps far more than one focused on a single nation. Very good work. This sort of stuff is incredibly important for civil rights in general.

[peergynt]

Another interesting example is Romania. The government (or Nicolae Ceaușescu) wanted to grow the population in 1967, so an anti-abortion law called Decree 770 was passed. The initial population growth consisted of a high number of unwanted children. When he was overthrown in 1989, most of the people involved were born during the time period immediately following the decree, they executed Nicolae Ceaușescu. In Systems Thinking they call this a delay in systems response.

[pawebielinski]

I'd like to add that the polish reform in 2020 wasn't popular at all, as it sparked a wave of huge protests which arguably led to change in govt.

[ocpando]

I just started watching your videos, and they're all so cool and very informative! Could you make a video of the history and correlations of Halloween/Dia de Los Muertos traditions from around the world? Thank you🎉❤

[chat-]

Great video and great topic. I always like how diverse the topics are and how often they address social political issues that we take for granted. I think in the animation Congo is shown wrongly.

[r.w.bottorff]

I personally really appreciate you examining these topics and how they have developed over time. Your channel is a new favorite of mine. Thank you.

[ShaunCheah]

I learned so much from this video; I was especially surprised by the info near the end about the French pill and its prevalence. I knew there was a pill for the procedure, but I hadn't known it had become the most common thing.

Personally, if I was responsible for the start of a pregnancy, I reckon I'd feel obligated to see it all the way through, but I'd still defer to my partner if she felt otherwise, and I'd accompany her to any appointments and cover the bill (if it's my fault anyway for skipping precautions), or at least my half of it.

In general, my perspective is like this: I'm an omnivore, I love meat and I reckon there's few things that taste better than a juicy medium-rare ribeye. So if a lady invited me over for dinner, I'd prefer a steak, but if she's vegetarian and she says we're having salad, then I'm not going to force her to cook steak (and at the end of the day it is her kitchen; I just contributed some ingredients), and I certainly don't think vegetarianism should be made illegal.

[lyricvids]

Thank you for this video! I’m a medical student, so learning the history of abortions and birth control is a useful tool for explaining to patients.

Also, you nailed the explanation of why pregnancies are dangerous. But keep in mind, the internal organs being squished is what happens in a HEALTHY pregnancy. There are SO many things that could go wrong and make it more dangerous; the egg could implant somewhere other than the uterus and essentially become a tumor, the mothers immune system could overreact to fetal cells which could be fatal, the placenta could detach from the uterus prematurely and cause severe bleeding… the list goes on.

Also just a side point, avoiding pregnancy is not the main reason most women take birth control. When a woman gets her period, the wall of the ovary literally bursts to let the egg out, causing huge scars that are visible with the naked eye. Then the bleeding phase is an entire layer uterus cutting off its own circulation until the tissue dies and detaches from the rest of the uterus. This process can be incredibly painful, so it makes sense that women would want to minimize that by stabilizing hormone levels.

[Scwarzkop]

I've been watching you for the past few years, and I can see you've really improved! I also really enjoyed the video. Greetings from the Netherlands

[mrreziik]

This video got buried by the algorithm...

[drawkicks]

Really been looking forwards to this one Scope, such an important topic to understand how far we’ve come!

[stssl]

One little addition: while we often believe that we need to control the woman to have higher births, the male role should not be ignored, as these ones are in pretty much all cases responsible for forceful carriage

[Mohsen.Eladl]

Glad that you post more videos now keep it up man 👍